An investigation into the 2020 election process has the support of local lawmakers who said there must be integrity in voting.

State Republicans on Tuesday announced the need for an audit and claimed extraordinary measures would be taken to learn if the election was fair, despite no evidence yet of any wrongdoing.

As far as no evidence, state Rep. Jeff Wheeland, R-Loyalsock, said “that remains to be seen.”

Wheeland said, “We have to give assurance to voters that their vote counts, that only legal votes were cast.”

State Rep. Garth Everett, R-Muncy, said it’s really about learning if irregularities in the election process took place.

“We just need to calm everyone’s fears,” he said. “There may have been some irregularities here and there, but I don’t think they add up to changing the election.”

Joe Hamm, who recently won election for the 84th state House seat being vacated by Everett, said, “My take is that every legal vote needs to be counted and every illegal vote needs to be not counted.”

He said he absolutely supports an audit and it’s important for people to trust the election process.

Hamm is a plaintiff in a lawsuit filed last week aimed to prevent counties from tallying provisional votes cast by voters with disqualified mail-in ballots. A judge ruled that the provisional ballots must be set aside

“Was there corruption?” Wheeland said. “I think we’ll find out in the next week.”

He recently sent out communications asking anyone with information of irregularities in the recent election to report them.

He noted that he received one report which turned out to be a voter signature mistake on a ballot.

“Lycoming County appears to be proper,” he said.

Wheeland said now is the information gathering phase of the process.

“If we discover problems, we fix them,” he said.

Everett noted that there still remains the question of whether write-in votes could be accepted after the Nov. 3 election date.

“It goes against the Election Code. The court has no authority to change election law,” he said.