PITTSBURGH and BETHLEHEM, Pennsylvania — Democratic county officials have acknowledged that overturning Pennsylvania's Senate election that lost Sen. Bob Casey is against the law.
“I think everyone knows that court precedent no longer matters in this country,” said Bucks County Commissioner Diane Ellis Marseglia. He voted Thursday to count defective provisional ballots that were prohibited by a Pennsylvania Supreme Court order, but voters did not. Sign one of the two required boxes.
“People break the law whenever they want,” Ellis Marseglia said. “So, for me, I'm violating this law because I want the courts to pay attention. There's nothing more important than counting the votes.”
Mr. Casey, a Democrat, has refused to concede and hopes a recount will overturn the race for U.S. Sen. The lawsuit alleges that it also violates a Pennsylvania Supreme Court order not to count ballots from voters in the state. It's election day, and they're confident the businessman and military veteran will hold on to victory even after the legal shenanigans.
Mark Davin Harris, chief strategist for the McCormick campaign, said of the ongoing count, which has narrowed the Republican lead to just 22,000 votes, “Once the count is complete, Dave will win by tens of thousands of votes.'' It will be,” he said.
“There is no way that Bob Casey will lead the way for a recount,” Harris added. Since his lead over McCormick is less than half a point, he wonders how he can close the gap enough to justify Pennsylvania taxpayers contributing at least $1 million to the recount. He said that the burden of proof was on the Casey camp. Incumbent senators could call it quits if they concede defeat.
McCormick and his Republican allies accused Democrats of trying to illegally count “the votes of unregistered voters.”
Harris noted that Casey's lawyers are suing the county election board to count thousands of provisional ballots whose registration could not be verified on Election Day. I'm very upset.”
“No one is going to count the votes of individuals who are not registered. This is completely false,” Adam Bonin, a lawyer for Casey's campaign, told the Post.
“This is a blatant attempt by Republicans to lie and distract from their efforts to disenfranchise Pennsylvanians by wasting votes from registered voters.”
The newspaper obtained documents showing the Casey team's appeal of the rejections of 595, 310 and 591 unregistered voters in Lancaster, Lackawanna and Montgomery counties, respectively.
The Casey campaign is “challenging the rejection of the provisional ballot solely because Board of Elections staff could not locate the voter's name on the list of registered voters,” the Lackawanna appeal says. , alleging that the election board may have failed to recognize the voter in the state's database. The voter may have moved or registration is pending and may be cancelled.
James Fitzpatrick, a lawyer for the McCormick campaign, responded with applause: “There is absolutely no legal or historical precedent for counting the votes of unregistered voters in Pennsylvania,” adding that election officials “justify this frivolous argument.” He promised to file a lawsuit against the commission.
After 13 years on the Board of Elections, Philadelphia County Republican Commissioner Seth Bluestein said, “I remember the past challenge to get the Board of Elections to count the provisional ballots of unregistered voters.'' No,” he told the Post.
Lawyers for the Democratic Party dropped their challenge Friday in Philadelphia because they could not produce a single registered voter.
McCormick's team is also trying to overturn the Bucks County Board of Elections' “inexplicable decision” to count 405 undated or incorrectly dated ballots.
The joint lawsuit, filed by McCormick with the Pennsylvania Republican Party and the Republican National Committee, alleges the board's decision Tuesday was “legally incorrect” and inconsistent with Congress' decisions. Pennsylvania Supreme Court Decision This caused Philadelphia County to stop counting undated ballots just two weeks ago.
Mr. Fitzpatrick has publicly announced that several counties won by Mr. Casey (including not only Bucks but also Center and Philadelphia) either voted in violation of the high court's ruling or intend to count undated ballots. He stated that he had made a statement.
“We are simply asking that we follow the clear ruling of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court,” Fitzpatrick said in a phone conversation Thursday.
The RNC and Pennsylvania Republican Party have separately appealed to the Supreme Court to block the counting of undated ballots. All 67 counties in Pennsylvania.
RNC Chairman Michael Whatley accused Casey of using “fraudulent lawyers” and “anti-democratic conspiracies” to “take back the Senate seat he decisively lost.”
