HARRISBURG, Pa. (KYW Newsradio) — Nine days after the general election, the fight for Pennsylvania Democrat Bob Casey’s seat in the U.S. Senate is not over — and it is not likely to be for another two weeks.
“As of Wednesday afternoon, just over 80,000 ballots remain to be counted. That number comprises approximately 20,000 mail-in and absentee ballots and approximately 60,000 provisional ballots,” said Secretary of the Commonwealth Al Schmidt.
The Associated Press called the race for Republican challenger Dave McCormick last week, concluding that not enough ballots remained to be counted in areas Casey was winning for him to take the lead. As of Thursday, McCormick led by about 26,000 votes out of more than 6.9 million ballots counted.
“The unofficial totals for Democratic incumbent Bob Casey and Republican candidate Dave McCormick were separated by only 0.43% as of 5 p.m. [Wednesday],” said Schmidt, a Republican. “Because that margin is less than 0.5%, state law required me to order a recount.”
Schmidt says county election boards must begin the recount by Nov. 20, complete it by noon on Nov. 26, and report the results to the Department of State by Nov. 27.
“Over the next two weeks, the department's election returns page, electionreturns.pa.gov, will continue to reflect the unofficial totals. Updates there will include counties’ tallies of those remaining 80,000 ballots. Those updates are separate from the recount,” Schmidt said.
“The results of the recount will be published online on Nov. 27.”
A recount is unlikely to change the unofficial result. Schmidt says there have been seven prior recounts in Pennsylvania — three in which the trailing candidate withdrew, and four that confirmed the leading candidate did indeed win.
Counties, meanwhile, continued Thursday processing tens of thousands of provisional ballots and hearing challenges to some of them by lawyers for Casey, McCormick and the state parties.
McCormick and state Republicans are asking the Pennsylvania Supreme Court to bar counties from counting ballots they say are undated or improperly dated, saying those decisions violate both the court's recent orders and its precedent in upholding the requirement in state law.
“What's taking place in these counties is absolute lawlessness,” said Pennsylvania Republican Party chair Lawrence Tabas in a statement.
Democratic-majority election boards in Philadelphia, Bucks County and Centre County voted to count the ballots, the lawsuit said. Democrats cast more mail-in ballots than Republicans and Democrats in the past have supported counting ballots that trip over what they view as meaningless clerical requirements in state law.
“We’re going to get sued either way, I’d rather be on the side of counting ballots than not counting them,” Bucks County Commissioner Robert Harvie, a Democrat, said before Tuesday's vote to count the ballots.
Meanwhile, McCormick's campaign and the state and national GOP sued in Bucks County court to contest the county election board's decision to count 405 such ballots.
It is the opposite of the position that McCormick took in court in 2022 in his failed eleventh-hour bid to close the gap in votes with celebrity heart surgeon Dr. Mehmet Oz in Pennsylvania’s Republican primary contest for U.S. Senate.
Lower courts have repeatedly deemed it unconstitutional or illegal to throw out such ballots. But higher courts — including the state Supreme Court most recently on Nov. 1 — have blocked those decisions.