UPDATED: 5 p.m.
PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — As Philadelphia City Commissioners on Friday began counting some 20,000 provisional ballots cast on Election Day, Republican Senate candidate Dave McCormick sought a court order that would have allowed him to challenge large numbers of the ballots. However, his attorney withdrew the request during a hearing in Common Pleas court.
The McCormick campaign sued the commissioners late Thursday night, arguing it should be allowed to “globally” challenge unsigned provisional ballots or those not in a secrecy envelope. It also wanted equal numbers of observers from each campaign.
The commissioners agreed to even numbers of observers but said state law dictates the rules for counting provisional ballots. Counting is expected to continue through the weekend and the election board will vote Wednesday on challenges to individual ballots.
The Associated Press called the highly contentious race for McCormick on Thursday afternoon. In its explanation of that call, the AP said McCormick foreclosed Casey’s path to victory by cutting his lead in the Philadelphia region while leading in the state’s more Republican-leaning areas.
McCormick has about a 30,000-vote lead in ballots counted so far, but the Casey campaign argues that there are more than 100,000 provisional ballots still to be counted statewide, more than enough to affect the final outcome.
Casey’s campaign seized on the lawsuit to bolster its argument that the race should not yet be called in McCormick’s favor, citing the language of the suit itself that the provisional ballots could impact the outcome of the election. In a statement, his campaign asked, “If McCormick really knew he had won, why would he try to throw out so many votes?”
UPDATE: A previous version of the story said McCormick’s campaign withdrew the lawsuit. The campaign only withdrew an injunction request.