What did court rulings say about the legality of third‑party forensic access to voting machines in Pennsylvania after 2020?
Executive summary
A Pennsylvania appellate court held that the state’s secretary of state has clear authority to prohibit “unauthorized third party access” to certified voting machines and to decertify any equipment that has been breached, effectively making county-ordered private forensic examinations unlawful under the state’s election regime; the ruling was 6–1 and left counties responsible for replacement costs and legal consequences tied to such breaches [1] [2] [3]. The state’s highest court also issued contempt sanctions in a related matter after county officials allowed copying of machine data, and the Department of State secured orders temporarily barring further third‑party access while litigation played out [4] [5] [6].
1. A decisive 6–1 appellate ruling: secretary of state can bar third‑party access and decertify machines
In a 6–1 decision the Commonwealth Court (sitting in the dispute reported across outlets) concluded that Pennsylvania’s election code empowers the secretary of state to issue directives instructing county boards of elections not to permit unauthorized third‑party access to voting equipment and to decertify machines that have been compromised, a holding that directly rebuffed Fulton County’s attempts to allow private vendors to image or examine Dominion machines [1] [2] [7] [3] [8].
2. Practical consequences: impoundment, replacement and no guaranteed reimbursement
The court’s enforcement posture translated into concrete consequences: machines that were examined by outside vendors were impounded during litigation, Fulton County replaced the equipment at its own expense, and the Commonwealth Court held the Department of State is not required to reimburse counties for the cost of decertified machines—leaving local governments to shoulder replacement and related costs [1] [9] [3].
3. Related contempt sanctions and costs against local officials
Beyond decertification, Pennsylvania’s Supreme Court later sanctioned Fulton County commissioners for secretly allowing a third party to copy voting‑machine hard drives, finding contemptable conduct in the context of ongoing litigation; the court ordered sanctions and permitted recovery of legal costs by Dominion tied to protecting the machines going back to late 2021 [4] [5].
4. The government’s public‑security rationale and prior guidance
State election authorities based their directive on security concerns that outside examinations and wholesale imaging could compromise certified systems; the Commonwealth Court opinion references earlier Department of State guidance (from 2016 and updated in 2020) distinguishing permissible vendor roles (election preparation tasks) from independent forensic analyses, and the court accepted the Secretary’s position that emergency directives were administrable without cumbersome rulemaking each time [10].
5. Dissent and claims of local control: judicial split and political context
The ruling was not unanimous—Republican Judge Patricia A. McCullough dissented—highlighting that the legal question involved tension between state oversight of certified equipment and county assertions of control or of contractual disputes with vendors and vendors’ forensic work [8]. The dispute was steeped in the post‑2020 political context: Fulton County officials sought outside examinations amid pressure from allies of former President Trump and litigation against Dominion, a backdrop that state authorities said risked undermining election security [1] [11] [6].
6. What the rulings did not settle and limits of reporting
The published rulings and reporting establish the legal baseline in Pennsylvania—that unauthorized third‑party forensic access can be barred and machines decertified, and that counties can be financially liable and face sanctions for violating directives—but they do not purport to exhaustively adjudicate every hypothetical fact pattern (for example, narrowly supervised forensic work coordinated with the Department of State or federal statutory intersections are not resolved in these sources); reporting and the court opinion instead focus on the Fulton County instances and the Secretary’s broad directive authority [10] [1] [4].