Pa. Senate leader Corman: Legislature will follow the law on appointing electors

The Pennsylvania Senate’s No. 2 Republican says the assertions in a story published by The Atlantic this week raising the possibility of an electoral college meltdown in the Keystone State are “pure conjecture,” and that he’s committed to “fulfill[ing] our constitutional obligation to ensure that everyone has the opportunity to vote.”

Senate Majority Leader Jake Corman, R-Centre, posted those comments in a series of Tweets on Thursday evening, hours after Republican State Party officials similarly pushed back against the story by Atlantic reporter Barton Gellman.

Here’s what Corman had to say on Twitter on Thursday night:

The questions and hypotheticals being stoked by The Atlantic are pure conjecture. I have had zero contact with the Trump campaign or others about changing Pennsylvania’s long-standing tradition of appointing electors consistent with the popular vote. 1/

— Senator Jake Corman (@JakeCorman) September 24, 2020

The General Assembly is obligated to follow the law and the law is the Election Code, which clearly defines how electors are chosen and does not involved the legislature. 2/

— Senator Jake Corman (@JakeCorman) September 24, 2020

My goal as a policymaker continues to be working in a bipartisan manner to fulfill our constitutional obligation to ensure that everyone has the opportunity to vote, that voters confidence that the system is fair and that the votes are counted in a timely manner. 3/3

— Senator Jake Corman (@JakeCorman) September 24, 2020

As the Capital-Star previously reported Thursday, Gellman’s 10,000 word story includes comment from Corman, who told the magazine that he hoped for a final tally on election night.

“The longer it goes on, the more opinions and the more theories and the more conspiracies [are] created,” Corman told The Atlantic.

Gellman continued: “If controversy persists [into December], Corman allowed, the Legislature will have no choice but to appoint electors. ‘We don’t want to go down that road, but we understand where the law takes us, and we’ll follow the law.’”

In a Morning Coffee column published Friday morning, Capital-Star Editor John L. Micek urged Corman and other senior Republican leaders to clarify their positions and to offer Pennsylvania voters reassurances that they would respect the election results.