Within the past two years, county officials across Pennsylvania have spent millions of dollars upgrading election equipment to meet the requirements of bipartisan election reform put into place in 2019.

Taxpayers, one way or another, are about to get hit again as Republican lawmakers — led by Sens. Doug Mastriano and David Argall and spurred on by former President Donald Trump — eye a “forensic audit” that could put the expensive machines on the shelf.

This week, Pennsylvania’s acting Secretary of State Veronica Degraffenreid decertified the voting machines in Fulton County after officials said they allowed a software firm to inspect the machines as part of an audit after the 2020 election at the request of local Republicans. The news comes on the heels of two counties — Tioga and York — both saying no to Mastriano’s request to audit their machines as well. Those two counties are Republican-led locales that said no thanks.

It’s getting tiring. Now it’s going to get expensive.

Republican state Rep. Steve Toth is pushing a similar audit in Texas. His language is nearly identical to that being pushed by Mastriano and others in Pennsylvania.

“No amount of fraud should be acceptable in our election system,” Toth said. “I think it’s important that we get to the bottom of this and make sure that people start to believe in their voting system.”

One more time, for those who still haven’t grasped the idiocy of this argument:

There is nothing to get to the bottom of here.

The reason people don’t trust the voting system is because of the lies you’ve been pushing for eight months.

Republican heads of Departments of State across the nation, including Arizona and Georgia, certified the elections after required reviews and audits. Election officials nationally have called the 2020 election the most secure in history. Former President Donald Trump’s own attorney general said there was no widespread voter fraud.

But here we are, again, taking a sledgehammer to a democratic process that, while not perfect, is better than most.

It is disappointing that places like Fulton County will have to buy new voting machines. They aren’t cheap. It cost one Arizona county $3 million to replace its voting machines compromised by its forensic audit. Do you think Fulton County, population 15,000 or so, has a spare $3 million lying around?

But that is just money.

That’s not nearly as much as the emotional cost of the continued push of these ridiculous lies. When will it be enough?

NOTE: Opinions expressed in The Daily Item’s editorials are the consensus of the publisher, top newsroom executives and community members of the editorial board. Today’s was written by Managing Editor Bill Bowman.