Luzerne County Republican Party head suggests a “re-vote”

WILKES-BARRE – As former Vice President Joe Biden closed in on a victory in Tuesday’s presidential election, the head of the Luzerne County Republican Party suggested an extreme measure to keep President Donald Trump in the White House.

“I would argue to possibly have a re-vote in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania to ensure the integrity of the vote,” Luzerne County Republican Party Chairman Justin Behrens told the Times Leader on Friday.

Behrens comment came after being asked to comment on Trump’s unsubstantiated claims of widespread voter fraud on Thursday night on national television.

Shelby Watchilla, Luzerne County election Director, said her office detected and reported the state’s only case of voter fraud in the Nov. 3 election, as stated by Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar on Thursday.

As a result, Forty Fort resident Robert Richard Lynn, a registered Republican, was charged with forging the name of his deceased mother on an absentee ballot application sent to the county.

“Deceased people can’t vote. Not in this county,” Watchilla said.

Behrens said there is a completely different standard when voting by mail versus voting in person.

In a statement emailed to the Times Leader, Behrens said, “When you vote in person you have a stronger checks and balances to ensure the voter rather than the mail-in ballot.”

Bi-partisan state legislation passed last year allowed voting by mail without an excuse or reason required in Pennsylvania.

“For the last month I saw our taxpayer money has been going to promoting the mail-in ballot. There were TV ads, billboard signs, and mailings to vote by mail. There were zero ads for voting in person,” he maintained..

“It is a disgrace that the poll watchers are being blocked in Philadelphia from doing their civil duty. If there is nothing to hide then let them watch.”

Dem chair responds

Kathy Bozinski, chair of the Luzerne County Democratic party, issued a response to Behrens’ comments.

“As for the protesters, they’re in the wrong county,” Bozinski said. “I can see that a number of the protesters are from out of state, and they may not realize that their candidate actually won Luzerne County.

“Their protest might have more impact outside the convention center in Philadelphia right now.”

Luzerne County update

Luzerne County Manager David Pedri said all in-person ballots cast at county polling places on Election Day, as well as all mail-in ballots and absentee ballots that were received by 8 p.m. on Election Night, are counted and are part of the numbers on the Luzerne County website.

Currently, Pedri said the county has 4,315 ballots left to process as described below:

• The County has received 225 mail in ballots that were postmarked by Nov. 3. Per Department of State guidelines, these were segregated and documented. These ballots will be counted at 3 p.m. Friday at 20 N. Pennsylvania Ave., Wilkes-Barre, Courtroom A.

• The Luzerne County Election Board will be meeting on Monday, Nov. 9, starting at 8 a.m. to begin the adjudication process and will review the following:

— 3,648 provisional ballots

— 442 Uniform Military and Voters Act (UMOVA) ballots.

Please note this is the amount of UMOVA ballots that are currently in the county’s possession. Per Pennsylvania law, UMOVA ballots could be received until 5 p.m. on Nov. 10.

President Trump statement

President Donald J. Trump emailed his statement to the media:

“We believe the American people deserve to have full transparency into all vote counting and election certification, and that this is no longer about any single election.

“This is about the integrity of our entire election process.

“From the beginning we have said that all legal ballots must be counted and all illegal ballots should not be counted, yet we have met resistance to this basic principle by Democrats at every turn.

“We will pursue this process through every aspect of the law to guarantee that the American people have confidence in our government.

“I will never give up fighting for you and our nation.”

Trump Campaign statement

The Trump campaign issued a statement early Friday, stating “This election is not over.”

The statement continued:

“The false projection of Joe Biden as the winner is based on results in four states that are far from final. Georgia is headed for a recount, where we are confident we will find ballots improperly harvested, and where President Trump will ultimately prevail.

“There were many irregularities in Pennsylvania, including having election officials prevent our volunteer legal observers from having meaningful access to vote counting locations.

“We prevailed in court on our challenge, but were deprived of valuable time and denied the transparency we are entitled to under state law.

“In Nevada, there appear to be thousands of individuals who improperly cast mail ballots. Finally, the President is on course to win Arizona outright, despite the irresponsible and erroneous ‘calling’ of the state for Biden by Fox News and the Associated Press.

“Biden is relying on these states for his phony claim on the White House, but once the election is final, President Trump will be re-elected.”

Biden has not claimed victory as of Friday afternoon, only saying he was “confident” he would prevail.