WASHINGTON — U.S. Rep. Mike Kelly sent out a campaign email Sunday night with an unusual question for his supporters in Western Pennsylvania: Does anyone know a good elections lawyer who can oversee the counting of provisional ballots?
The Butler Republican, who won re-election last week to a sixth term in Congress, also asked for volunteers to oversee ballot counting at elections offices in Butler, Crawford, Erie, Lawrence and Mercer counties.
With “The President Needs Our Help!” in the subject line, the campaign email — typically aimed at ginning up last-minute donations to meet quarterly fundraising deadlines — arrived in inboxes well after all the votes were cast.
The call for expertise and volunteers came as Western Pennsylvania Republicans unified around President Donald Trump in lobbing legal challenges and arguing that “irregularities” tainted former Vice President Joe Biden’s projected victory in the 2020 election.
Mr. Trump has refused to concede and has sought to shore up support from the party, even as some Republicans — including former President George W. Bush — have already sent congratulations to Mr. Biden. As world leaders, business groups and lobbyists prepared for the transition to a new administration in Washington, many of the party’s lawmakers pledged to continue to fight the results.
“I think there is a very legitimate question being asked now by the American people and by Pennsylvanians as to what happened and how did this happen,” Mr. Kelly said in an interview Monday.
Mr. Kelly released a statement Saturday that pointed to several legal actions across multiple states and added that “investigations into voting irregularities are ongoing” and that “the election will be determined by the law, not media projections.”
Asked whether he knew for sure of any voter fraud, Mr. Kelly said: “More Americans are questioning this election than any election we’ve had before — that’s what I know for sure.”
“For sure, there’s a lot of people who have lost faith and trust in our electoral system because of what they believe they’ve seen happen,” he said. “The Trump campaign is going to do what they’re lawfully allowed to do, and I don’t know why we can’t wait for this process to play out.”
On Saturday — hours after Mr. Biden was called the winner of Pennsylvania and, with the commonwealth’s 20 electoral votes, of the election — Mr. Kelly and eight other Pennsylvania Republicans wrote a letter to state Democratic officials claiming “continued attempts by [Gov. Tom Wolf’s] administration and its officials to put their thumbs on the scale in pursuit of what they believe should be a preordained outcome.”
The lawmakers — led by Rep. Glenn Thompson, R-Centre, and including Rep. Guy Reschenthaler, R-Peters and Rep. John Joyce, R-Blair — complained that officials had broken parts of the state election code.
"From last-minute guidance provided to the counties on the eve of the election, to the Attorney General playing dual roles as a political candidate and legal arbiter with a vested personal interest, to volunteer legal observers being prevented from having access to vote counting locations,” the group wrote, “we believe these conflicts and irregularities have greatly eroded public trust in the commonwealth’s electoral system.”
Yet it is unlikely such complaints would overturn legally cast ballots or change the result of Mr. Biden’s victory in the state, legal experts said.
And as for a possible Republican-led challenge of ballots postmarked by Election Day that arrive up to three days later, the number of ballots in question are not likely to exceed Mr. Trump’s margin of defeat.
Election officials have segregated those ballots and excluded them from the results to prepare for any legal challenge. Secretary of the Commonwealth Kathy Boockvar has said the number of late-arriving ballots was a “fraction” of what state officials saw in the June 2 primary election, when about 60,000 arrived in the three days following that election. Mr. Trump could end up trailing Mr. Biden by more than 100,000 votes.
Some Republican lawmakers have refused to publicly acknowledge Mr. Biden’s victory but also don’t support Mr. Trump’s claims he actually won the election. Republicans by and large have issued statements calling for “all legal votes” to be counted.
On Monday, Mr. Reschenthaler, who sits on the House Republicans’ Elected Leadership Committee, tweeted his support for a letter signed by 38 House Republicans asking the Justice Department to “ensure the integrity of our election by investigating irregularities & fraud in the vote counting process.”
Mr. Kelly’s note Sunday to supporters asked for attorneys who live in Butler, Crawford, Erie, Lawrence or Mercer counties to email Kathleen Gallagher, a Pittsburgh elections attorney for Downtown-based Porter Wright who was named general counsel of the Pennsylvania Republican Party last year. But on Monday, the Trump campaign said it had enough legal help push its goals.
Ms. Gallagher was among a group of GOP attorneys to allege “irregularities” after Rep. Conor Lamb, D-Mt. Lebanon, won a razor-thin special election in March 2018. One of their allegations then was that a representative of Republican Rick Saccone, Mr. Lamb’s opponent in that race, was delayed by county officials when he tried to monitor the vote computation.
Ultimately, the 2018 election result was certified by the county. Last week, Mr. Lamb won re-election by about a 51% to 49% margin over Republican challenger Sean Parnell, who has refused to concede.
Ms. Gallagher, reached by phone, declined to comment on the legal strategy Monday.
Democrats also have sent emails to party members, seeking financial help in defending against GOP lawsuits.
Within an hour of the Associated Press’ call Saturday that Mr. Biden had won the election, Democratic Pennsylvania U.S. Sen. Bob Casey’s campaign sent a note to supporters asking for an “emergency donation” to support Democrats’ legal defense and the two Senate races in Georgia that will go to runoff elections in January.
“I can't wait to work with Joe and Kamala to build our nation back better,” Mr. Casey’s campaign wrote about Mr. Biden and his running mate, Kamala Harris. “The first step, though, is making sure that this election is fully resolved as quickly as possible. We have no time to waste.”
Daniel Moore: dmoore@post-gazette.com, Twitter @PGdanielmoore
First Published: November 10, 2020, 1:15 a.m.
