Chapman will be the Pennsylvania Department of State’s fifth secretary or acting secretary during Wolf’s seven years as governor. She is set to take over January 8.
“As we move into a new year and new election cycle, I have full confidence that Leigh M. Chapman will continue the Department’s efforts to lead Pennsylvania through a smooth election process and ensure that Pennsylvania voters continue to experience free and fair elections, among many responsibilities,” Wolf said in a press release on Monday.
The Department of State has attempted to protect elections from outside hackers through moving counties to paper-based voting machines, enforcing a new mail-in voting law and defending the administration against unsubstantiated election fraud allegations from former President Donald Trump and his allies.
The latest battle regarding the 2020 election is Democrats attempting to block Senate Republicans’ subpoena for information on elections systems and voters, the Associated Press reported. Republicans cited voter fraud concerns and other claims made by Trump and his allies.
Wolf’s administration and Dominion Voting Systems, based in Denver, attempted to stop what they call a Republican “forensic investigation” into the state’s 2020 election expanding to inspect voting machines, according to WHYY.
Republican leaders argued that their probes are necessary to bring back public confidence in elections, AP reported. Experts says the reviews are compromising faith in U.S. elections, though.
Additionally, an Associated Press review of every possible voter fraud case in six states found that there were only 26 that were suspicious, less than 0.5 percent of the margin by which President Joe Biden beat Trump.
The Pennsylvania Department of State took heat in 2021 for a major bureaucratic bungle, failing to advertise a proposed state constitutional amendment, as required, to allow victims of childhood sexual abuse to sue perpetrators and collaborators over decades-old claims. As a result, a statewide referendum must wait two more years, at least, until 2023.
Chapman previously served almost two years in the department under Wolf as a policy director, from 2015 to 2017. Most recently she has been the executive director of the Washington-based Deliver My Vote, a voting advocacy group.
Chapman also helped run the voting rights program of the Washington-based Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights.
After almost a year in the job, Degraffenreid will become a special adviser to Wolf.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
