'BREAKING: Pennsylvania initiated a FULL audit of the RIGGED ELECTION'
A social media post claimed that Pennsylvania has begun to audit its 2020 election results. The July 7 Facebook post said, 'BREAKING: Pennsylvania initiated a FULL audit of the RIGGED ELECTION.' The post was flagged as part of Facebook's efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its news feed. (Read more about PolitiFact's partnership with Facebook.) 'The state has not initiated anything,' responded Wanda Murren, spokesperson for the Pennsylvania Department of State. There is someone who has been very vocal about wanting to audit some of Pennsylvania's results: state Sen. Doug Mastriano. Mastriano, a Republican, was inspired by his trip to Maricopa County, Ariz., where the state led a partisan review on the 2020 election in April. Mastriano is exploring whether a privately funded audit is permissible under Pennsylvania law. But not even Mastriano is calling his effort a full audit. On July 7, Mastriano issued letters to Philadelphia, York and Tioga counties requesting a 'forensic investigation' and threatening to subpoena counties that do not comply with his request by July 31. City officials at Philadelphia and York told PolitiFact they have received his letter but have yet to respond to it. In a statement July 7, the Pennsylvania Department of State said similar attempts to revisit the election results in Arizona and Fulton County, Pa., 'turned up absolutely no evidence of any fraud or discrepancies.' The statement encouraged Pennsylvania counties to refuse Mastriano's request. 'Pennsylvania counties, despite a convergence of difficult circumstances, ran a free, fair and accurate election in 2020,' the department said. The election results were thoroughly reviewed. Pennsylvania conducted 'risk-limiting' audits in 63 out 67 counties, including the counties that Mastriano contacted. These audits examine a random sample of paper ballots and compare them to the total reported by the vote-counting machine. Back in February, Pennsylvania Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar said these kinds of audits provide 'additional confidence in the accuracy of election outcomes, further strengthen our ability to withstand an attack on our electoral system, and confirm that the outcome of an election is accurate.' The results show that Biden won Pennsylvania by 81,000 votes, or about 1%. The initial count of in-person, Election Day votes showed Trump with an early lead in the state. However, Biden won more than three-quarters of Pennsylvania's mail-in ballots, helping him capture the state's 20 electoral votes.
Our ruling The Facebook post said that Pennsylvania has started a full audit of the 2020 election results. This is inaccurate. A senator made headlines for his so-far unsuccessful efforts to persuade a few counties to conduct forensic investigations of their results. So far, no counties have accepted the challenge, because the election results have been affirmed by audits already. We rate this claim False.