The Pennsylvania Supreme Court ordered state election officials on Monday stop counting mail-in ballots marked with wrong dates or missing dates on outer envelopes.
The court order It says Bucks, Montgomery and Philadelphia counties, where Republicans say officials prefer to count mail-in ballots with errors in their outer envelopes, must follow previous high court rulings. undated or copperdated postal ballots should not be considered.
The directive is a courtroom victory for Republican Dave McCormick, who narrowly edged Democratic Sen. Bob Casey in the Senate race. the headed to count again this week.
Elizabeth Gregory, a spokeswoman for McCormick’s campaign, called the decision “a major setback for Casey’s attempt to count illegal ballots.” Type in Xadded that McCormick “looks forward to taking the Oath of Office in January.”
Tiernan Donohue, campaign manager for Casey, described the proceedings as a statement on Monday As part of an effort by McCormick and other Republicans to disenfranchise Pennsylvania voters.
“David McCormick and national Republicans are working to throw out the provisional ballots cast by Pennsylvania voters and passed by state boards. That’s wrong, and we’re going to fight it,” Donohue said.
McCormick announced his victory Friday after the Associated Press predicted him the winner. NBC News reports not yet predicted winner of a race that was very close to the call. McCormick leads Casey by 17,408 votes with 99.7% of the vote, with 24,000 ballots still to be counted.
Pennsylvania rules trigger a recount if the vote margin is less than 0.5 percentage points. The recount, which is scheduled to begin this week, must be completed by noon on November 26.
The Republican National Committee and the Pennsylvania Republican Party filed a petition seeking a court order, splitting the Democratic-led boards of elections in Bucks, Montgomery and Philadelphia counties that previously voted to tabulate ballots with incorrect dates.
Districts have decided to count these ballots because an incorrect date does not make the voter illegal or the ballot illegitimate.