State lawmakers from Carbon County and Tamaqua are calling for investigations into the 2020 general election before results are officially certified.

State Reps. Doyle Heffley and Jerry Knowles and state Sen. David G. Argall recently joined fellow Republican legislators in calling for an audit and hearings into the 2020 election.

The legislators say they are responding to a large number of concerns from voters in their districts about the security of the 2020 election, particularly in the integrity of the mail-in ballot system.

“We need to investigate what transpired, so we can develop a comprehensive legislative fix to ensure that the people of Pennsylvania can have faith in their future elections,” Heffley said.

Heffley, R-Carbon, held a town hall with voters last week to discuss the plans by House Republican leaders to investigate the handling of the 2020 election.

His specific issues include the counting of mail-in ballots received late but postmarked on Nov. 3, and the elimination of signature analysis from the mail-in ballot process.

Both issues were the subject of legal battles that took place before the election.

The state Supreme Court ruled in October that counties must accept mail-in ballots received up to three days after the election, as long as they were postmarked Nov. 3.

Following that ruling, the state’s top election official issued two directives to counties in the days before the election. On Oct. 28, Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar told them to separate ballots. A few days later, she told them to count them like any other ballots.

Several state senators, including Argall, have called for Boockvar to resign her position because of her handling of the ballot deadlines.

In another Supreme Court decision over signatures on mail-in ballots, the court ruled that counties could not disqualify ballots if the signature on the ballot did not match the one on file for the voter.

Signature analysis was written into Act 77, the state law creating mail-in balloting, when it was passed by lawmakers and Gov. Tom Wolf last year.

The court’s interpretation was an overreach of its authority granted in the state constitution, Heffley said. He also took issue with the Supreme Court deciding to allow counties to create ballot dropboxes.

“The Supreme Court changed three provisions in the law, and that now has cast a shadow over this whole election,” Heffley said.

Heffley said he supports the two-prong approach proposed by Speaker Bryan Cutler: hearings before the House State Government Committee, and an independent audit with subpoena powers.

Heffley made no allegations of fraud, but encouraged anyone with personal experiences to contact the House Republican Caucus to share their experience.

Argall, R-Schuylkill, and Knowles, R-Schuylkill, have also joined calls to audit the election.

The Senate State Government Committee also plans to hold hearings reviewing the election results.

“We all want the same thing in this election: a fair process where every legal vote is counted, and everyone can have faith in the ultimate result of the election,” he said.

Knowles said an investigation could address suspicions about voter fraud in Philadelphia, which he and many voters share.

“For many reasons, people are questioning the validity of this election. If we have faith in the process, we can accept the result. However, that was not the case in this year’s election,” Knowles wrote.

Knowles appeared with a group of Republican legislators in the Capitol Rotunda last week as they called for the bipartisan audit.

In a statement, Knowles said he feels the mail-in ballot system is less secure, particularly without signature analysis.

Knowles said he supports counting every legal ballot in a transparent manner and will continue fighting for a fair vote count in the current election. Our House Republican leadership team is closely monitoring election-related misconduct and will use every legal and legislative tool at our disposal to stand up for the rule of law and the legitimacy of our elections,” Knowles said.

The deadline to certify the state’s election results is Nov. 23, but lawyers for the Trump campaign have filed a lawsuit to possibly delay that certification for further investigation of the election results.