Retired Lt. Col. Shaffer says Pennsylvania needs to establish election integrity to fix perceptions

Retired Army Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer on Thursday told Pennsylvania lawmakers the state needed to establish better election integrity laws to improve perception inside the U.S. among allies and adversaries worldwide that the country's voting systems are secure.

"Failure to establish election integrity will likely enable hostile actors to learn from our mistakes and work to establish the capability to severely disrupt and create doubt in the results of our elections," Shaffer, now president of the London Center for Policy Research, said in prepared remarks for a Pennsylvania House hearing.

Schaffer told lawmakers paper ballots would better increase the security and integrity of elections, as opposed to electronic voting.

"Digitization of some aspects of voting have improved processing of results and timely reporting. But our addiction to 'rapid gratification' of results has now opened the door for vulnerabilities," he said.

Shaffer also said Pennsylvania must create a non-partisan or bipartisan investigation into its election systems' integrity.

Audits of the 2020 elections has resulted in lawmakers in some states proposed changes, including Georgia, where GOP lawmakers drafted, passed and enacted a voter integrity law that now requires ID for absentee balloting.

However, there has yet be to conclusive evidence to support claims of widespread voter fraud or ballot-counting irregularities.

Shaffer said he was OK with people either voting in person or by mail, as long as the process of counting is secure.

He suggested Pennsylvania allow better access for observers to monitor the vote-tabulation process to improve faith in the system.