The 2020 presidential election was marred by irregularities, insecure election practices, and last-minute rule changes that, as election integrity activists have since pointed out, benefitted Democrat Joe Biden. As The Federalist Editor-in-Chief Mollie Hemingway put it in her bestseller, the election was “Rigged.”

But four years later, President-elect Donald Trump won in a landslide in part because Republicans and conservatives mobilized like never before to build a massive election integrity network focused on ensuring free and fair elections. 

Take 2020 for example. Republican observers “were either kept out, or allowed inside but kept too far away from the counting to see what was happening” at the Philadelphia Convention Center, as explained by my colleague Beth Brelje.

But following reports on Tuesday that Republican poll watchers were being “turned away” in Philadelphia, York, Westmoreland, Allegheny, Lehigh, Cambria, Wyoming, and Lackawanna counties, the Republican National Committee’s (RNC) was on top of it.

RNC Chairman Michael Whatley said in a post on X that the committee “deployed our roving attorneys, engaged with local officials, and can now report that all Republican poll watchers have been let into the building.”

Similar action was taken in Milwaukee after the “Milwaukee Elections Commission announced over the weekend that certain voting precincts may be limited to only one Republican and one Democrat poll watcher on Election Day,” as the RNC wrote in a Monday statement. The RNC noted that the city’s elections commission “not disclosed which precincts” would be affected. The RNC filed suit, and Milwaukee responded by affirming

Image Credit Courtesy McCormick Campaign

Republican Dave McCormick flipped Pennsylvania’s long-held Democrat U.S. Senate seat in an upset that will remove Sen. Bob Casey Jr. from office. But the results are so close there will be a recount.

Casey has held the seat since 2007 and was seeking a fourth six-year term.

The McCormick campaign released a statement on Thursday afternoon noting the close race.

“McCormick is up 30,679 votes with more to come, as ruby red Cambria County is still outstanding. While votes continue to be counted, any way you slice it, Dave McCormick will be the next United States Senator from Pennsylvania,” Elizabeth Gregory, McCormick’s communications director, said in the statement. (As of publication, McCormick led Casey by nearly 32,000 votes).

Cambria County was slow to count ballots because the county had a technical problem on Election Day. Vote scanners could not read the ballots, and it took hours to figure out a solution. Many ballots were cast on paper and had to be counted by hand.

Sen. Bob Casey has not tapped out. The margin between the candidates is .48 percent, and Pennsylvania law triggers an automatic recount when the results are .5 percent or less.

There are more ballots to be counted before the election is certified. Overseas voters have until Nov. 12 to return their ballots and be counted. This year, 37,642 overseas voters requested ballots to vote in Pennsylvania according to Department of State data.

Maddy McDaniel, Casey’s communications director,

After former President Donald Trump won the election in a landslide, President Joe Biden claimed election integrity is an issue of the past. Election integrity advocates beg to differ.

“I hope we can lay to rest the question about the integrity of the American electorate system. It is honest, it is fair and it is transparent. And it can be trusted, win or lose,” Biden said on Nov. 7 according to The Hill. 

Legacy media outlets have been pushing a similar message. The New York Times claimed yesterday that “After Trump Took the Lead, Election Deniers Went Suddenly Silent” (“election deniers” is the press’s propaganda term for election integrity advocates).

But that is false. Integrity advocates took immediate action to address issues when they rose on election night, keeping them from developing into a bigger problem. Trump’s massive turnout truly did make this election “too big to rig,” but that does not mean it was free from bad actors trying to rig it.

Election Night

In Milwaukee, Wisconsin, officials found broken security seals on multiple tabulators before polls closed, causing officials to recount 31,000 ballots, as The Federalist previously reported. The issue affected 13 tabulators. A Republican poll observer told The Federalist at the time that officials were using “stalling tactics,” adding that “it appears that they are trying to figure out what they need to win.”

But the issue gained attention, and, at the very least, drew oversight from election integrity advocates. Republican Sen. Ron Johnson went to