Pennsylvania’s top election official spent nearly three hours Thursday defending her handling of the 2020 presidential election and calling for an end to the "lies that have been proven again and again to be false," Spotlight PA and Votebeat report.

Kathy Boockvar, secretary of the commonwealth, appeared virtually Thursday at the first of 14 election-related hearings Republicans said are intended to educate voters on how the elections were run, and provide legislators with recommendations for how they can improve the state’s election law.

Democrats have launched a counter-offensive, a series of “Defending Democracy” hearings, which they said will “address the lies” being spread.

“The attack on our Capitol was the direct result of disinformation and lies — lies that were intentionally spread to subvert the free and fair election and undermine people’s faith in our democracy,” Boockvar said during the hearing.

THE CONTEXT: The meeting of the House State Government Committee centered on what in any other election would have been mundane — guidance to counties on how to handle certain problems with mail ballots. But with intense national focus on Pennsylvania, that guidance became a flashpoint.

After the election, GOP leadership seized on Boockvar’s actions to cast doubt on the results. The top Republicans in the Senate called for her resignation, while leaders from both chambers asked Congress to reject the state’s electors for President Joe Biden.