Sen Toomey's Certifying Of Election Is 'Appalling', Joe Gale Says

NORRISTOWN, PA — With the U.S. Senate due to certify the Electoral College vote for Joe Biden for president in a session on Wednesday, a splinter of Republicans have announced plans to ask for a delay in certification to continue the investigation into the election.

Pennsylvania's Republican Senator Pat Toomey is not among this group of President Trump loyalists, and he's been outspoken in recent days in his criticism of Trump's claims of voter fraud, acknowledging "irregularities" but stating that "evidence is overwhelming" that Biden won.

"I voted for President Trump and endorsed him for re-election. But, on Wednesday, I intend to vigorously defend our form of government by opposing this effort to disenfranchise millions of voters in my state and others," Toomey wrote on Twitter.

The comments did not go unacknowledged by one of the area's most vocal Trump supporters, Montgomery County Commissioner Joe Gale.

In an open letter published over the weekend, Gale called Toomey's comments "stunningly disconnected from the reality experienced across America by millions of voters," arguing the dozens of suits filed by Trump's campaign in Pennsylvania and nationally were not fairly considered.

"As a two-term United States Senator, you know quite well that the United States Supreme Court and other judicial bodies at the federal and state level refused to hear cases filed by the Trump campaign and pro-Trump plaintiffs as doing so would not only have forced them to accept mountains of direct evidence, circumstantial evidence and eyewitness testimony, but also would have forced them to issue rulings on the merits," his letter reads.

Gale, who voted against the certification of Montgomery County's election results back in November, again cited issues with Act 77, the much-discussed law passed in bipartisan fashion in Oct. 2019 allowing for mail-in voting for any reason. Gale placed equal blame on the GOP for that action.

"Republicans in the Pennsylvania State House and State Senate joined forces with Democrat Governor Tom Wolf in 2019 to pass Act 77, Pennsylvania’s universal mail-in voting law, which allows for 50 days of no excuse mail-in voting," Gale wrote. "This is the longest vote-by-mail period in the entire nation and, frankly, nobody should be voting nearly two months before Election Day."

Act 77 was among the issues which the Trump campaign appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court to consider in delaying the certification of the election results in December. The case was dismissed.

Democrats have repeatedly stated there is no evidence that mail-in voting caused voter fraud in the 2020 election.

Toomey also criticized the Republican senators who said they would not certify the election vote in the U.S. Senate Wednesday.

"A fundamental, defining feature of a democratic republic is the right of the people to elect their own leaders," Toomey wrote Saturday. "The effort by Sens. Hawley, Cruz, and others to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election in swing states like Pennsylvania directly undermines this right."

Toomey was among several state and national GOP leaders who condemned Trump's claims of fraud in the days immediately following the election.