Two weeks after the 2024 election, an official recount for the contested Pennsylvania Senate seat has started. Republican challenger David McCormick is roughly 17,000 votes ahead of incumbent Democrat Senator Bob Casey, within the 0.5% threshold required under Pennsylvania law to trigger an automatic recount. The recount must be completed by noon on Tuesday, November 26 and results must be reported to the Pennsylvania Secretary of State by noon on Wednesday, November 27. The results will be published later that day.
The recount is expected to cost taxpayers more than $1 million. While the senate race was called for McCormick last week, Senator Casey refused to concede.
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court twice ordered counties not to count disputed ballots, including mail ballots lacking the required signatures and dates. Democratic officials in Philadelphia and surrounding Bucks, Centre, and Montgomery counties admitted their intent to ignore the court order and count illegal votes. Pennsylvania Republican Party Chair Lawrence Tabas commented, “What’s taking place in these counties is absolute lawlessness.”
“I think we all know that precedent by a court doesn’t matter anymore in this country, and people violate laws any time they want. There’s nothing more important than counting votes,” Bucks County Democrat Commissioner Diane Ellis-Marseglia said Thursday as she and other Democrats voted to reject a GOP-led challenge to reject 501 contested ballots. Democrats insist they are acting in good faith in believing that rejecting someone’s vote due to a clerical error violates their constitutional rights.
Republican Party officials have argued that the results have been decisive, and that Casey lacks any achievable path to victory in the recount. “Let’s be clear about what’s happening here: Democrats in Pennsylvania are brazenly trying to break the law by attempting to count illegal ballots. They are doing this because they want to steal a senate seat,” Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Whatley wrote on X.
On Monday, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court again ruled in a 4-3 decision that undated or misdated mail-in and absentee ballots “shall not be counted” by any of the state’s board of elections. This includes the counties where Democratic officials have voted to defy the high court’s ruling. Republicans have pledged to pursue legal action against any local officials who’ve openly defied the court.
“When election officials pick and choose at the last-minute which rules to follow and which to ignore, it naturally leads voters to lose trust in the process. The RNC and the Republican Party in Pennsylvania are aggressively fighting back to bring an end to this corrupt and despicable conduct,” Whatley added.
