GETTYSBURG, Pa.—State Sen. Doug Mastriano, a leading Republican candidate for governor, recounted his long-running, unproven case for election fraud on Saturday.
Yet his claims seemed subdued compared to those of leading national election denier Mike Lindell, the My Pillow founder and another featured speaker.
Lindell repeatedly and falsely claimed the number of votes counted in the 2020 election in Pennsylvania exceeded the number of registered voters. Each time, he drew nothing but applause from the crowd of several hundred which nearly filled a conference room near Gettysburg.
For the record, Pennsylvania, with about 13 million people, had 9,090,962 registered voters at the time of the 2020 election, according to Ballotpedia. Pennsylvania voters cast 6,915,283 votes, according to the Pennsylvania Department of State.
Mastriano, the first speaker of the event, portrayed himself as the lone member of Pennsylvania’s Republican-controlled state Senate willing to fully pursue fraud claims.
He said “behind my back the swamp rose up” to thwart him, and lamented that he faces opposition from his Republican Senate colleagues in addition to Democrats and the news media.
Lindell, meanwhile, repeatedly accused even Fox News of being part of a corporate and media-driven conspiracy against investigating fraud claims, saying he had “evidence” of many thousands of votes stolen from former President Donald Trump even in Democrat-dominated states such as California.
Such was the tenor of the free “voter integrity conference” promoted by Mastriano and held in the heart of his district.
The was no major media coverage and no highly-visible presence of other prominent Republicans. It was a pro-Trump crowd, although “Mastriano for governor” items were plentiful.
Before entering, attendees signed a petition to decertify Pennsylvania’s 2020 election result.
Mastriano, 58, is a retired Army colonel in his first term in the state Senate. He announced his run for governor in January. Polls have shown him neck and neck with the other Republican frontrunner, former U.S. Rep. Lou Barletta, with both well ahead of the others, including Jake Corman, the ranking Republican in the state Senate.
Mastriano has been a leading denier of the results of the 2020 election, including those of Pennsylvania, which President Joe Biden won by 80,555 votes, and where multiple state and county audits found no evidence of significant fraud.
Moreover, Republicans did well overall in Pennsylvania, winning the statewide races for treasurer and auditor general, further undercutting the plausibility of any fraud engineered by Democrats.
“There’s no evidence that there was widespread fraud. Period,” says political analyst G. Terry Madonna. “I don’t think anyone wouldn’t admit there could have been a bit here and a bit there … But nothing that would have changed the outcome of the election.”
The Associated Press said it contacted the elections offices in all 67 Pennsylvania counties. It said election officials in 11 counties identified a total of 26 possible cases of voter fraud. Most involved allegations of ballots being cast or people who were dead. Six people had been charged as of late 2021.
“Statewide, no prosecutor, judge or election official in Pennsylvania has raised a concern about widespread fraud,” the Associated Press wrote.
In the weeks following the election, Mastriano tweeted the false claim of “mounting evidence” against Pennsylvania’s election results, and advanced the idea state lawmakers could intervene and send pro-Trump delegates to the Electoral College.
Mastriano was in contact with Trump in the weeks leading up to the final result certification. He also organized buses to Washington, D.C. on Jan. 6, when Trump supporters stormed the Capitol trying to disrupt certification of Biden’s win.
Video appears to show Mastriano and his wife among a crowd passing through barricades on Jan. 6, although he says he heeded Capitol police directions. No video has emerged showing him inside the Capitol.
Mastriano received a subpoena to appear before the congressional committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection and to hand over documents related to naming alternate Electoral College electors who would support Trump. He has refused news media requests to discuss whether he complied.
Meanwhile, polls consistently show a strong majority of Republicans agree with Trump’s baseless claims the 2020 election was stolen.
Madonna thinks Mastriano believes such claims and it will be a significant issue for him as he runs for governor.
“He’s not going to relent on it and he’s not going to give up on it,” he says.
Mastriano hasn’t responded to questions from PennLive regarding his candidacy.
Madonna further believes a substantial portion of Mastriano’s “base” is strongly behind Trump and his false claims of election fraud. However, he doubts Mastriano can expand the number who believe in a stolen election.
“People have already made up their mind,” he says.
Lindell, who made a fortune after founding My Pillow Inc., has traveled the country promoting unproven claims of voter fraud, saying proof is abundant if only someone will investigate
His claims have extended even to states such as Idaho, where Trump won by more than 30 points. The claims so bothered Republican officials in Idaho that they conducted an investigation, which concluded Lindell’s claims and information on his website were false, according to NBC News.
The officials sent a cease and desist letter to Lindell telling him to remove a false chart from his website and pay $6,500 for the probe, but he refused, NBC News said.
Democrats had a 600,000 registered voter advantage in Pennsylvania at the time of the 2020 election, further undercutting claims that only fraud could account for Trump’s loss.
A PennLive analysis in the days after the election found that while Pennsylvania’s red counties again went strongly for Trump, Biden consistently did several percentage points better than Hillary Clinton in 2016, significantly contributing to his win. Trump actually did better in Philadelphia than in 2016, an indicator that caused some conservatives to drop the idea of fraud.
READ MORE: Biden votes pour in from Philly, yet he might have won the election in Pa.’s red counties
Moreover, PennLive interviews with officials in Harrisburg region counties, most of them Republican, found none who saw any evidence of fraud. Some said they were bothered by efforts by state- and national-level Republicans to promote fraud claims.
Mastriano on Saturday told the crowd the solution is to elect only candidates who make addressing election fraud their highest priority. He further called for a state constitutional amendment requiring voter ID in Pennsylvania.