DOYLESTOWN, Pennsylvania — The Pennsylvania Senate recount is underway Wednesday in all of the state’s 67 counties.
The hotly contested, razor-thin race between incumbent Sen. Bob Casey (D-PA) and Republican challenger David McCormick has McCormick leading by about 17,000 votes out of nearly 7 million ballots counted. The initial margin not only triggered an automatic statewide recount but has also opened the floodgates to a litany of court filings as both sides dig in to battle it out.
The Associated Press called the race for McCormick on Nov. 7, claiming not enough ballots remained to be counted in areas Casey was winning for him to take the lead. Despite the call, Pennsylvania law demanded a do-over.
While a simple recount isn’t likely to move the numbers, Democrats and Republicans have been fighting over including some provisional ballots. Republicans and the state’s highest court insist ballots with errors, such as incorrect or missing dates and signatures, should be tossed. Democrats argue they should be counted and that not doing so would sow distrust in the election process and integrity.
Democratic-majority election boards in Montgomery, Philadelphia, and Bucks counties voted to count the ballots that lacked a correct date, echoing some election officials around the state who argue the date tells them nothing about a voter’s eligibility or a ballot’s legitimacy.
Republicans maintain that the date is a critical element of ballot security.
The matter has quickly spiraled into a legal nightmare, with both sides bombarding the judicial system.
On Monday, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ordered counties not to count mail-in ballots without a proper date after several Democratic-led counties already did. The ruling reaffirmed the high court’s earlier decision, keeping possibly thousands of undated or misdated ballots out of the final tally.
It was largely seen as a win for McCormick’s campaign as more Democrats voted by mail than Republicans.
In response to the ruling, Democrats filed 10 lawsuits in 10 Pennsylvania counties in an effort to get as many ballots counted as possible. They include Philadelphia, Lackawanna, Montgomery, Erie, Bucks, Dauphin, Delaware, York, Berks, and Lehigh counties.
The lawsuits challenge their respective boards of elections’ decisions not to count certain provisional ballots. In each county, a number of provisional ballots were not counted because they either lacked a proper signature, an inner secrecy envelope, or both. The lawsuits from the Democrats also claim the ballots that were disqualified were done so because of faulty poll worker instructions, which they argue violate voters’ due process rights, as well as the federal Help America Vote Act.
In each of the Democratic lawsuits, they are asking the court to reverse the boards of elections’ decisions to disqualify 3,200 affected ballots across 10 counties.
Republicans have also been busy in court.
The Republican National Committee and McCormick’s campaign have filed 12 lawsuits across the state.
McCormick was leading by more than 30,000 votes when the Associated Press initially called the race. Like Republicans across the country, as well as President-elect Donald Trump, he siphoned a significant amount of support that Democrats had traditionally gotten in the state.
McCormick was winning outright in almost every region of the state. He lost Philadelphia and its suburbs but by a lot less than Republicans had in the past. In Bucks County, Casey was winning by less than a point compared to his performance in 2018, when he was up by 6 points.
Bucks County has been at the center of controversy and a target of Republican ire ever since Commissioner Diane Ellis-Marseglia said she voted to ignore the Pennsylvania Supreme Court directive to disqualify ballots that were not signed or dated properly.
On Tuesday, she claimed her recorded comments were taken out of context and misinterpreted. She called her statement to ignore the court’s ruling “inartfully worded.”
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“I apologize for all the upset and confusion it caused,” Ellis-Marseglia said.
There was a protest planned for Wednesday morning at the Bucks County commissioners’ meeting in Doylestown, though it’s unclear if people are still planning to attend.
