HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) – The Pennsylvania Supreme Court on Monday reached a flash point amid the ongoing vote counting in the U.S. Senate elections between Democratic Sen. Bob Casey and Republican David McCormick, ordering counties not to mail -in ballots that are missing a correct handwritten date on the return envelope.
The order is a win for McCormick and a loss for Casey as the campaigns prepare for a statewide recount and pressure counties for favorable decisions in vote counting. The order from the Democratic-majority Supreme Court reiterates its previous position that ballots should not be counted in the election, a decision that three Democratic-controlled counties have nevertheless challenged.
The Associated Press called the race for McCormick last week, concluding that there were not enough ballots left to count in the areas Casey was winning to put him in the lead.
As of Monday, McCormick led by about 17,000 votes out of nearly 7 million ballots counted — within the 0.5% margin threshold to trigger an automatic statewide recount under Pennsylvania law.
Republicans had asked the court last week to block counties from counting the ballots, saying those decisions violate both the court's recent orders and its precedent in upholding state law's requirement that a voter check the date on the ballot. must write the return envelope of his ballot paper.
Democratic-majority elections boards in Montgomery County, Philadelphia and Bucks County voted to count ballots missing the correct date, following election officials across the state who say the date tells them nothing about a voter's eligibility or eligibility. legitimacy of a ballot.
Republicans argue that the date is a crucial element for the security of the election.
The GOP also initially asked the court to block the count in Center County, but later said the county had counted only three ballots that GOP officials considered reasonable.
Statewide, the number of mail-in ballots with incorrect or missing dates on the return envelope could number in the thousands. However, most counties — including some populous counties controlled by Democrats — did not count them.
Democrats cast more ballots than Republicans, and Democrats have in the past supported counting ballots that stumble over what they see as pointless administrative requirements in state law.
Several courts have ruled against the dating requirement in at least a half-dozen cases — including once by the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals — but higher courts have always reinstated it.
Meanwhile, the state Supreme Court has postponed ruling on a pending case questioning whether the law violates constitutional voting rights.
McCormick took a position aligning with Democrats in his failed eleventh-hour attempt to close the vote gap with famed heart surgeon Dr. Mehmet Oz in Pennsylvania's Republican primary for U.S. Senate.
In that case, McCormick's attorney told a state judge that the purpose of Pennsylvania election law is to get people to vote, “not to play 'gotcha' with them.”
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