The 7-to-4 vote by the Senate Intergovernmental Operations Committee allows the panel to subpoena the Department of State, which oversees elections statewide, for the name, address, driver’s license and partial social security numbers of every voter registered as of last November.
The sweeping subpoena also requests all email and other written communications between the Department of State and elections officials in every Pennsylvania county; all state election directives and guidance to counties; and training materials for poll workers, election judges, and others.
That information, Senate officials said, would then be turned over to a yet-to-be-identified private company, which would carry out the review. The committee’s chair, Republican Sen. Cris Dush of Jefferson County, refused to provide any information about which companies are being vetted for the job.
Dush did reveal Wednesday that the private company that the Senate will hire will be paid with taxpayer dollars. Top Senate officials have said they do not have a specific budget for their inquiry, nor have they set a ceiling on how much they are willing to spend on it.
They have also struggled to describe its scope, and have vacillated on why they believe it is necessary. As recently as June, Corman said he did not see a need to “relitigate” the 2020 election.