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NC, SC state lawmakers sign letter asking for audit of ‘corrupted’ 2020 election

Braley Dodson

Police officers are the only people seen at the South Carolina Statehouse on Wednesday, Jan. 20, 2021, in Columbia, South Carolina. The capitol was closed for safety concerns for President Joe Biden's inauguration. (AP Photo/Jeffrey Collins)

COLUMBIA, S.C. (WBTW) — Thirteen state lawmakers from South Carolina and 16 from North Carolina have signed a letter asking for an audit of every state to look into claims of a “corrupted” 2020 presidential election.

The letter, dated Tuesday and posted by Wendy Rogers, an Arizona state senator, is addressed to “the citizens of the United States of America” and piggybacks on conspiracy theories about election fraud. 

The letter claims that “sworn affidavits have accumulated from many states detailing rampant corruption and mismanagement in the election process,” and that “fraud and inaccuracies have already been shown through multiple audits and canvasses in multiple states, as well as through lawsuits challenging the validity of election results in several counties in multiple states.”

Election conspiracy theories were spread by then-President Donald Trump and his supporters, which then spurred the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol that left multiple dead. 

On Wednesday, a federal judge ordered two lawyers who filed a class-action lawsuit claiming the election was stolen by President Joe Biden to pay more than $180,000 in attorney fees for the defendants. 

The letter calls on states to decertify their electors if it’s proven that election results “were certified prematurely and inaccurately.”

If it’s shown that Biden was not the winner, the letter wants the U.S. House of Representatives to vote and decide the “rightful winner.”

“This is our historic obligation to restore the election integrity of the vote as the bedrock of our constitutional republic,” the letter reads. “If we do not have accurate and fair elections, we do not have a country.”

More than 180 state legislatures from across the nation signed the letter.

South Carolina legislators who signed the letter are: