Republican David McCormick and Democratic Sen. Bob Casey are vying for Pennsylvania’s U.S. Senate seat (Capital-Star composite from official/campaign photos)
The campaigns for U.S. Sen. Bob Casey and his Republican challenger Dave McCormick are suing to overturn decisions by the boards of elections in a dozen Pennsylvania counties on whether to count provisional ballots on which voters or election workers made errors.
The lawsuits are a significant escalation of litigation over the race for Pennsylvania’s U.S. Senate seat, in which McCormick leads by less than 0.3% of the vote, according to unofficial results from the Pennsylvania Department of State. The margin was small enough to trigger Pennsylvania’s automatic recount provision and counties are required to begin the process by Wednesday. The counties must complete their recounts by Nov. 26.
“Thousands of Pennsylvanians’ votes are in question across the Commonwealth as David McCormick and national Republicans work to throw out ballots cast by eligible voters and accepted by county election boards,” Casey campaign manager Tiernan Douglas said in a statement Tuesday. “As hearings commence today, Senator Casey will continue to fight back against efforts to disenfranchise voters to ensure Pennsylvanians’ voices are heard and that eligible voters can participate in our democracy.”
The Casey campaign claimed a victory on Tuesday afternoon after a Philadelphia judge rejected a challenge by McCormick to the election board’s decision to count 966 provisional ballots with various errors by voters or election officials.
Republicans have criticized Casey for allowing the recount to proceed, noting that it is a costly process that has never changed the outcome of a statewide election . The Department of State estimated that the recount in the Senate race will cost the state $1 million.
Gov. Josh Shapiro, asked if he would intervene to avoid wasting taxpayer money, said the decision of whether to waive a recount is the candidates’ to make. Speaking to reporters at a news conference Tuesday, Shapiro noted that McCormick’s unsuccessful campaign for the GOP nomination for Senate in 2022 was among the four recounts that have proceeded since the recount law was passed in 2004.
“The most important thing is that the will of the people be respected, that all the votes are counted and that ultimately a winner is determined based on the will of the people,” Shapiro said.
McCormick’s campaign on Tuesday evening released results it said showed figures from Armstrong, Montour, Forest and Sullivan counties where the recount has already been completed showing Casey gained a total of 6 votes. The Department of State did not immediately reply to a request for comment Tuesday evening and the Capital-Star was not able to independently verify the figures provided by the McCormick campaign.
“While it is Senator Casey’s prerogative to seek a recount, it is a waste of time and taxpayer money,” McCormick campaign communications director Elizabeth Gregory said. “With four counties done, there has been virtually no change in the result. We expect this pattern to be repeated everywhere.”
The four small, rural counties are Republican strongholds that President-elect Donald Trump carried by margins between 21% and 53%.
Casey’s campaign has filed lawsuits in ten counties over the boards of elections’ decisions to invalidate provisional ballots for what it describes as minor issues that have no bearing on a ballot’s validity or the voter’s eligibility.
They include ballots rejected because the voter signed the envelope once but not a second time. Voters are required to sign before and after completing the ballot and Casey’s campaign argues the requirement is unnecessary.
Casey is also challenging the rejection of ballots where the completed ballot was not placed in the inner envelope before being sealed in the outer envelope. Because election workers are supposed to supervise the provisional ballot voting process, voters may be disenfranchised because they were not given the correct instructions or materials, the campaign argues.
And Casey is challenging decisions not to count ballots where the voter did everything correctly but an election worker made a mistake by not signing the envelope.
Casey’s campaign has filed suits in Berks, Bucks, Dauphin, Delaware, Erie, Lackawanna, Lehigh, Montgomery, Philadelphia and York counties over rejections for one or two of those ballot flaws.
McCormick is suing to throw out ballots over missing voter signatures, election worker mistakes or a failure to check a box stating the reason a provisional ballot was cast in Bucks, Chester, Erie, Lackawanna, Monroe, Montgomery, Northampton and Philadelphia counties.
Republican election lawyer Jessica Furst Johnson told the Capital-Star such challenges are a normal part of the ballot canvassing process in any election.
“The counting of the provisionals is part of the canvassing process so that would happen regardless of the recount,” said Johnson, who worked for the Keystone Renewal super PAC, which advocated for McCormick’s election this year.
But Democratic election lawyer Adam Bonin told the Capital-Star on Monday that this year the issue of provisional ballots has been amplified following the state Supreme Court decision that county election officials must allow voters to vote by provisional ballot if they learn their mail-in ballots may not be counted. Problems with mailing vote-by-mail ballots in Erie County may have increased the number of provisional ballots cast there, he added.
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