State officials moved to decertify voting machines in south-central Pennsylvania’s Fulton County after local officials allowed a third-party to scrutinize “key components” of its system, the Department of State said in a statement Wednesday.
Fulton County officials disclosed that they had allowed WAKE Technology Services, Inc. (Wake TSI), a West Chester-based information technology company, to review its system earlier this year at the behest of state Sens. Doug Mastriano, R-Franklin, and Judy Ward, R-Blair, who asked county officials to conduct an audit of the county’s election results.
“These actions were taken in a manner that was not transparent,” State Secretary Veronica Degraffenreid said in a July 21 letter to county officials. “As a result of the access granted to Wake TSI, Fulton County’s certified system has been compromised and neither Fulton County, the vendor, Dominion Voting Systems, nor the Department of State can verify that the impacted components of Fulton County’s leased voting system are safe to use in future elections.”
In May, the Arizona Mirror, a sibling outlet to the Capital-Star, learned that WAKE TSI was conducting a hand recount of 2.1 million Maricopa County ballots as part of an ongoing election audit.
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The decertification of Fulton County’s voting system comes weeks after Degraffenreid warned that county voting systems could be decertified if they were subjected to a post-election third party review.
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Her directive was issued in response to Mastriano’s July request for election documents, materials and systems from three Pennsylvania counties – Tioga, Philadelphia and York.
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Tioga and York counties have since rejected or objected to Mastriano’s request.
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Philadelphia County, which has yet to respond to the request, has until July 31 to do so, according to Mastriano’s letter to county officials.
Originally published at www.penncapital-star.com,by Cassie Miller
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