Pennsylvania Secretary of State Al Schmidt said Wednesday that the unofficial vote count in the U.S. Senate race between Democrat Bob Casey and Republican Dave McCormick is within 0.5%, meaning a recount will occur automatically under state law.
The Associated Press called the race for McCormick on Nov. 7, but Casey stood his ground, citing the enormous number of uncounted votes. On the same day that the AP called the race, the Pennsylvania Department of State said there were still 100,000 votes left to be counted.
According to the data, McCormick has 48.93% of the vote and Casey has 48.5%. unofficial resultsSchmidt said, a margin of 0.43%.
Schmidt’s office estimated the recount would cost more than $1 million in taxpayer funds.
The Department of State said the state’s 67 counties must begin their recounts by Nov. 20 and complete them by noon on Nov. 26 and report the results to the secretary by noon on Nov. 27. The results of the recount will not be included and will be published by November 27, Schmidt’s office said.
The recount marks the eighth triggering of the state’s automatic recount law since the state passed House Bill 97 in 2004. Not all candidates agree to participate in the recount or concede for the recount to end or not take place at all . However, in all four cases where a recount was carried out, the initial election results were confirmed, meaning they remained unchanged.
According to Schmidt’s office, the four recounts that have occurred since 2004 are:
- The 2022 U.S. Senate GOP primary between McCormick and Mehmet Oz cost the state $1,052,609
- The 2021 general election between Democrat Lori Dumas and Republican Drew Crompton for the Commonwealth Court costs $1,117,180
- The 2011 Commonwealth Court Democratic primary between Kathy Boockvar and Barbara Behrend Ernsberger cost $525,006.70
- And the 2009 Supreme Court general election between Anne Lazarus, Robert Colville and Temp Smith, which cost $541,698.56
A spokesman for McCormick’s campaign said Wednesday that a recount would be a “waste of time and taxpayer money,” but added that it was up to Casey.
“Senator-elect McCormick’s lead is insurmountable, as the AP has made clear,” McCormick spokeswoman Elizabeth Gregory – wrote in a post on social media “McCormick knows what it’s like to lose an election and he’s confident that Senator Casey will ultimately come to the right conclusion.”
Casey’s campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment after Schmidt’s announcement.
On Friday, McCormick held a victory party in Pittsburgh, and on Tuesday, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s office announced that McCormick and Sen.-elect Ruben Gallego, R-Ariz. was invited for freshman senator orientation.
In a statement Tuesday morning, Casey thanked election officials for continuing to count votes. “Our county election officials will finish counting these votes, just as they do in every election,” he said. “The American democratic process was born in Pennsylvania, and that process will continue.”
Before Schmidt determined whether a recount had taken place, campaigns and their supporters accused each other of not respecting the will of voters. Casey’s campaign pointed to a lawsuit filed Tuesday by the GOP seeking to overturn the decision Judgment of the Commonwealth Court of 30 October Absentee ballots with missing or incorrect dates must be counted.
Pennsylvania appeals (again) appeals court ruling that undated absentee ballots should be counted
“David McCormick and his allies are attempting to disenfranchise Pennsylvania voters through lawsuits designed to throw out large tranches of votes that they have admitted in legal filings could influence the outcome of the election,” Casey campaign manager Tiernan Donohue said in Wednesday’s statement. . “Senator Casey wants the voices of all Pennsylvanians to be heard as county election officials continue to count votes. This democratic process must be allowed to take place and determine the outcome of these elections.”
McCormick’s argument in the latest case differs from the one he and his lawyers advanced in 2022, when the outcome of the GOP primary for the U.S. Senate was decided by less than 1,000 votes and subject to a recount. McCormick’s attorneys demanded that undated absentee ballots be counted in the 2022 race, which McCormick ultimately awarded to Mehmet Oz.
New TV ad paid for by a conservative outside the Fair Elections Fund expenditure group calls Casey and Democrats “sore losers” and notes that Casey called on President-elect Donald Trump to step down in 2020 to respect the “peaceful transition of power.”
Trump famously refused to concede and tried to overturn the results of the election, which President Joe Biden won.
Pennsylvania Relations
The last time Pennsylvania had a statewide recount was in McCormick-Oz in 2022.
At the local level, groups of three or more voters in a precinct can request a recount if they believe fraud or errors occurred. This type of recount only applies to votes cast in constituencies, which typically represent a tiny number of voters. In total, there are approximately 9,000 districts in Pennsylvania’s 67 counties.
Jill Stein, the Green Party’s 2016 presidential candidate, attempted to fabricate a recount of this year’s presidential elections in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania. Her campaign has filed challenges to the results in more than 100 precincts across Pennsylvania, raising concerns about the integrity of electronic voting machines, but he abandoned the effort after court in Pennsylvania He requested bail of $1 million to cover costs.
According to an October analysis by Fair Votea nonpartisan organization advocating ranked choice voting. It found that 36 of the nearly 7,000 statewide general elections nationwide between 2000 and 2023 were recounted. Of these, only three resulted in a turnaround and occurred in elections where the margin of victory was less than 0.06%. The last time a statewide recount resulted in a reversal was the 2008 U.S. Senate race in Minnesota, which saw Al Franken win.
The State Department said Wednesday that there were 60,366 uncounted provisional ballots and 20,155 uncounted absentee and absentee ballots, for a total of 80,521 ballots for which county boards of elections “have not yet made a final decision on their validity or eligibility for counting.”
As Fair Vote found, most recounts shift only a tiny number of votes and usually widen the gap between the winner and runner-up rather than narrow it.
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