Voting integrity group hires lawyers to defend Pa. county targeted by state for election audit

An election integrity group has deployed a team of lawyers to defend a Pennsylvania county after it was targeted by the state following a third-party audit of the county's election machines. 

The Pennsylvania Secretary of State last month announced that it was decertifying audited voting machines in Fulton County, Pa.; the county will reportedly have to pay for new machines at its own expense. 

On Wednesday, the Amistad Project—an election integrity initiative spearheaded by former Kansas Attorney General Phill Kline—said in a press release it had retained a team of attorneys "to serve as special counsel to the County of Fulton and the Fulton County Board of Elections as they defend their right to conduct post-election audit of Fulton County's voting machines."

"Fulton County, the only county in Pennsylvania to conduct an independent audit of its voting machines after the 2020 election, is appealing the unilateral decision of Acting Secretary of the Commonwealth Veronica Degraffenreid to decertify the county's voting machines in response to the audit, which was requested by members of the state legislature," the project said in its press release. 

Kline in the release called the state secretary's decision "particularly remarkable" because "the legislature, not the executive branch, has the constitutional responsibility and duty to manage elections."

"One of the central tenets of representative government is transparency," Kline said "Fulton County should not be punished for attempting to provide the highest level of transparency possible."