SALEM — Bobby Levy will replace Greg Barreto as District 58’s state representative in 2021, but they got a chance to collaborate before the end of Barreto’s tenure on a letter supporting the effort to halt the Electoral College vote in several key swing states in the 2020 presidential election.

Barreto and Levy signed a Dec. 11 letter from a group of GOP legislators to Oregon Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum requesting she join a Texas lawsuit that sought to block electors in Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin from voting for President-elect Joe Biden.

The letter didn’t sway Rosenblum, a Democrat, who joined 22 attorneys general in filing a brief opposing the lawsuit. On the same day the Oregon legislators sent the letter, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear the case, asserting that Texas didn’t have standing to sue other states over their election systems.

In the lawsuit, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton argued that the changes these states made to their voting processes in light of the COVID-19 pandemic led to a dramatic increase in mail-in ballots that weakened election security and led to “significant and unconstitutional irregularities in those four states.”

The letter from the Republican legislators quoted a few sections from the lawsuit and urged Rosenblum to join the lawsuit.

“We believe that fair elections are vital to our democratic republic and that the submission of electors by these four states should be at least postponed,” the lawmakers wrote.

Levy said she signed the letter not because she wanted to overturn the election, but because she wanted to support election integrity after seeing a video of vote counting in Georgia.

A clip from the security video of a ballot counting site in Fulton County, Georgia, shows election workers removing bins from under tables late at night during the vote counting process.

President Donald Trump and conservative groups and media have pointed to the video as evidence of election fraud, alleging that the bins were filled with ballots that were processed after Republican poll watchers were told to go home for the night.

But after an investigation, Georgia election officials determined that the bins were empty and were a part of the normal ballot counting process. Poll watchers were never told to leave, but some observers left for the night when a group of election workers left the facility.

Levy and Barreto were the signatories from Northeast Oregon and Levy was the only legislator-elect to add her name. The other signatories were Sen. Chuck Thomsen of Hood River, Sen. Alan Olsen of Canby, Sen. Dennis Linthicum of Klamath Falls, Sen. Kim Thatcher of Keizer, Rep. Bill Post of Keizer, Rep. Gary Leif of Roseburg, Rep. Vikki Breese Iverson of Prineville, Rep. Mike Nearman of Independence, Rep. E. Werner Reschke of Klamath Falls and David Brock Smith of Port Orford.

State Sen. Bill Hansell, R-Athena, said the letter was never circulated to him so he never got the chance to sign it. Hansell said he didn’t know if he would have signed it because he would need to gauge the purpose and tone of the letter.

State Rep. Greg Smith, R-Heppner, did not return a phone message requesting comment as of press time.

The Electoral College voted on Tuesday, Dec. 15, further affirming Biden’s win.

Before the Electoral College vote, Levy declined to comment on whether Biden had won the presidential election, citing other pending litigation related to the presidential election.