Premature Statewide Presidential Certification While SURE System Showed 155,053-Vote Irreconcilable Discrepancy (PA)

Pennsylvania Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar certified the 2020 presidential election on November 24, 2020, despite an irreconcilable discrepancy between the certified vote total and the Commonwealth’s own official voter record. Pennsylvania’s SURE system is, by statute, the official voter record of the Commonwealth. A December 20, 2020 interim analysis of SURE data across 64 counties identified approximately 205,122 more votes counted than voters of record. A December 28, 2020 analysis by Pennsylvania House Republicans identified a gross discrepancy of approximately 202,377, with a net unexplained discrepancy of approximately 170,830 votes after accounting for over- and under-votes — more than double Biden’s certified margin of 80,555 votes. Representative Frank Ryan testified before the U.S. Senate on December 16, 2020, that “the results of the 2020 presidential election in Pennsylvania cannot be conclusively determined.” The House Republican analysis characterized the certification as “absolutely premature, unconfirmed, and in error.” The contemporaneous record states plainly: “If SURE data was correct, the election could not be certified due to the discrepancies. If SURE data was incorrect, the election could not be certified due to discrepancies.” The Pennsylvania Department of State attributed the gap to counties that had not yet completed uploading vote histories to SURE at the time of certification, characterizing the analysis as based on “incomplete data.”