Letter: Rep. Benninghoff Should Acknowledge That Biden-Harris Won Pennsylvania

I am deeply distressed to hear that state Rep. Kerry Benninghoff and other leaders of the Pennsylvania House are trying to get our representatives in Congress to contest the allocation of Pennsylvania’s 20 electoral votes to the Biden-Harris ticket. They are using the grounds of “fraud” for which no evidence has been presented by anyone in the numerous and frivolous lawsuits that have been filed by the Trump campaign and have been thrown out of court by the federal and state judiciary, including the U.S. Supreme Court.

The Biden-Harris ticket won this state by 80,555 votes. They won it by a larger percentage than they won Arizona and yet that Republican-led legislature is refusing to take the very action Mr. Benninghoff and his fellow Pennsylvania House Republicans are taking.

Like Mr. Benninghoff, when I was sworn as a member of State College Borough Council, I pledged to uphold and defend the U.S. and Pennsylvania constitutions. There is no democracy, no republic and no constitutional government when the losing side of an election refuses to acknowledge the right of the winner to win it and take office.

I ask Mr. Benninghoff and his fellow legislators to consider the damage they are doing to the electoral process and to the faith of the voters who elected them and those they represent.

Jesse Barlow
State College