State GOP lawmakers push for new election-auditing office Marc Levy The Associated Press HARRISBURG — Republicans and Democrats are feuding over whether Pennsylvania’s roughly $40 billion budget package negotiated behind closed doors and passed within hours of becoming public includes money for the state auditor general to begin auditing election results. The idea to create an election-auditing bureau under the independently elected auditor general gained currency in the Republican-controlled Legislature amid former President Donald Trump’s baseless conspiracy theories about Democrats stealing the November election from him. House Speaker Bryan Cutler, R-Lancaster, maintains that budget legislation carries $3.1 million for Auditor General Tim DeFoor, a Republican, to create a bureau of election audits with broad authority to subpoena materials and review votes counted, ballots, ballot envelopes, election machine logs, pre-election machine tests and more.