In late 2019, Pennsylvania Republicans were publicly lauding themselves as proponents of voting by mail after they helped pass a bill to expand the state’s absentee ballot system.

Their bipartisan legislation “serves to preserve the integrity of every election and lift the voice of every voter in the commonwealth,” said GOP House majority leader Bryan Cutler, who appeared at the bill signing ceremony with the state’s Democratic governor. Eight of the bill’s nine sponsors were Republicans.

Less than a year later, however, the Pennsylvania Republican Party is suddenly working overtime to try to limit the state’s vote-by-mail system — they are aiming to limit ballot drop boxes, throw out ballots that are not properly enveloped, and stop clerks from counting votes of properly postmarked ballots that arrive shortly after Election Day, even as the Trump-controlled US Postal Service has warned Pennsylvania that ballots put in the mail on time may not arrive by Election Day. All of these moves come amid fears that the party will try to use its power in the legislature to shift electors to Trump in the event of a close election result.