Republican Rep. Andy Harris endorsed serious allegations regarding fraud in the presidential election. But by his own standards, his own election was far more fraud prone than the presidential contest in either Georgia or Pennsylvania.

Applying the Harris standard, it is clear that there are grave questions surrounding his election.

• Mail ballots applications were mailed out statewide in Maryland but neither in Georgia nor Pennsylvania.
• There were signature checks on all mail ballots in Georgia and Pennsylvania but none in Maryland, where the law prohibits this ballot-security measure.
• The election in the First District was overseen by partisan Republican county governments. Though there is no evidence of bias and vote rigging, Harris didn’t provide any when he cast suspicion on vote counting in Philadelphia.
• Maryland accepted mail-in ballots after election day—and not just from the armed forces or people living abroad.
• Maryland took a very long time to finalize its count.

Harris needs to step down until a lengthy investigation can take place and we review the process. No matter how many recounts we conduct, I know he understands that we cannot trust the results based on his stance on the Georgia electoral votes. The voters deserve answers. We can hold a special election sometime late in 2022.

Or we could just acknowledge that this is all hogwash. Rather like Harris’s specious challenges to the legitimacy of Joe Biden’s victory that attacked our democracy and stoked violence at the Capitol resulting in the death of five people, including the murder of a police officer.