Last Updated on November 9, 2020
Senate Lindsey Graham (R-SC) said he will be requesting the Department of Justice and the Postmaster General to investigate whistleblower claims by a Pennsylvania postal worker about a scheme to backdate mail ballots to reflect they hadn’t arrived after a court mandated deadline.
Graham, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, received a sworn affidavit from Richard Hopkins, a US Postal Service employee in Erie, Pennsylvania. Hopkins claims that the local postmaster, Rob Weisenbach, had issued a directive to US Postal Service (USPS) workers to collect mail-in ballots they picked-up after Nov. 3 and deliver them directly to him to be backdated.
Providing false information in a signed sworn affidavit is illegal, carrying a penalty mandated for perjury.
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“I heard Weisenbach tell a supervisor at my office that Weisenbach was back-dating the postmarks on the ballots to make it appear as though the ballots had been collected on November 3, 2020, despite them in fact being collected on November 4 and possibly later,” Hopkins said.
Hopkins indicated that he is willing to testify about his charge under oath.
Election law in Pennsylvania – as mandated by the courts – allowed for ballots to be counted up to three days after Election Day. The stipulation was that the ballots be postmarked as having been received at a postal facility no later than November 3, 2020.
Hopkins testified in his affidavit, that on November 5, 2020, he overheard a conversation between Weisenbach and local USPS supervisor Darrell Locke, in which he heard Weisenbach tell Locke about backdating all but one of the ballots they received on November 4, 2020.
“I overheard Weisenbach tell Locke that they ‘messed up yesterday’ – November 4, 2020 – by accidentally postmarking one ballot as having been collected November 4, 2020 (when it had actually been collected),” Hopkins wrote.
In a statement issued through his office, Graham said he plans to have Hopkins testify to the Senate Judiciary Committee once the Senate convenes.
