Casey Concedes to McCormick in Pennsylvania Senate Race Amid Lawsuits
Democratic Incumbent Sen. Bob Casey conceded on Thursday to his GOP challenger David McCormick in the Pennsylvania Senate race amid a barrage of lawsuits on both sides.
“As the first count of ballots is completed, Pennsylvanians can move forward with the knowledge that their voices were heard, whether their vote was the first to be counted or the last,” Casey said in a statement.
The fate of the active lawsuits in a variety of Pennsylvania counties is still uncertain. McCormick and Casey’s campaigns may withdraw their lawsuits or they can let them play out in court.
Also, the Pennsylvania Department of State has been conducting a recount since the margin of the Senate race was less than 0.5% — triggering an automatic recount in the state. The results were set to be released by Nov. 27. On Thursday, Casey asked the department to cease any ongoing recount efforts.
“This race was one of the closest in our Commonwealth’s history, decided by less than a quarter of a point,” Casey said. “I am grateful to the thousands of people who worked to make sure every eligible vote cast could be counted, including election officials in all 67 counties.”
On Friday, Secretary of the Commonwealth Al Schmidt said in a statement that the Department of State told county elections officials to stop their recount activities.
“Thank you to all of Pennsylvania’s elections officials for their hard work throughout this election cycle, including counting millions of ballots and continuing to diligently conduct two audits to ensure every eligible vote cast in the Nov. 5 election is accurately counted,” Schmidt said.
After the two audits are completed, Pennsylvania counties must certify the results of the election by this Monday.
Now that Casey has conceded, Republicans are set to have a 53-47 majority in the Senate starting next year.
Previous update, Nov. 21
On Wednesday, a Pennsylvania court ruled in three election lawsuits regarding whether or not some provisional ballots should be counted in the general election in Bucks and Monroe counties.
In a lawsuit filed by the Republican National Committee (RNC) and the campaign for U.S. Senate candidate David McCormick over the Bucks County Board of Elections decision to count 100 provisional ballots lacking certain signatures, a court ruled that those ballots submitted without a voter’s signature won’t be counted in the general election results. However, the court also ruled that 84 provisional ballots in Bucks County missing the signature of a judge of elections or minority inspector will be counted.
Meanwhile, the court also ruled in a different Bucks County election lawsuit regarding provisional ballots. The lawsuit, filed by the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) and the campaign for Sen. Bob Casey (D) challenged the Bucks County Board of Elections’ decision to not count 74 provisional ballots that were not enclosed in a secrecy envelope, alleging that poll workers either didn’t provide them or failed to properly explain the instructions to voters. The judge denied the DSCC’s petition and those 74 ballots won’t be counted.
A Pennsylvania court also issued a ruling in the RNC and McCormick’s challenge to the Monroe County Board of Election’s decision to count 42 mail-in ballots submitted with undated or wrongly dated outer envelopes, along with 23 provisional ballots missing the voter’s signature. The court ruled that the 42 ballots shouldn’t be counted, given the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s reaffirmed ruling that undated or wrongly dated mail-in ballots won’t be counted in the general election. The court also ruled that the 23 provisional ballots missing voters’ signatures must be disqualified.
Previous update, Nov. 20:
A Pennsylvania court denied a petition in Philadelphia County from the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) and U.S. Sen. Bob Casey’s campaign to try and get 2,073 provisional ballots counted in the general election. According to the lawsuit, the Philadelphia Board of Elections didn’t count the ballots because the outer envelope was missing a signature, or the ballots weren’t closed in a secrecy envelope. The Democratic plaintiffs argued that these mistakes were because of inaccurate instructions from poll workers, which violates voters’ due process rights and the federal Help America Vote Act.
Both the DSCC and Casey’s campaign also filed motions to intervene in lawsuits filed by the Republican National Committee (RNC) and U.S. Senate candidate David McCormick’s campaign in Berks, Bucks, Delaware, Lackawanna, Monroe, Montgomery and Northampton counties.
Meanwhile, a court denied a petition from the Republican National Committee (RNC) and U.S. Senate candidate David McCormick to get 58 provisional ballots in Chester County thrown out. The Chester County Board of Elections decided to count the provisional ballots, which were missing a signature from an election worker.
In total, there are 18 active lawsuits in Pennsylvania from both Republicans and Democrats to count or reject certain ballots, as the state undergoes a recount for the contentious U.S. Senate race.
Learn more about all the election lawsuits filed in Pennsylvania here.
Previous update, Nov. 19
Democrats filed ten lawsuits in Pennsylvania on Monday in an effort to get as many ballots counted as possible, just as the closely watched U.S. Senate race undergoes a recount.
The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) and the campaign for Sen. Bob Casey (D) filed the ten lawsuits in ten different Pennsylvania counties — Philadelphia, Lackawanna, Montgomery, Erie, Bucks, Dauphin, Delaware, York, Berks and Lehigh Counties — challenging their respective boards of elections’ decisions to not count certain provisional ballots. In each county, a number of provisional ballots were not counted because they either lacked a proper signature, or an inner secrecy envelope — or both. The lawsuits allege that these ballots were disqualified because of inaccurate poll worker instructions, which violated voters’ due process rights and the federal Help America Vote Act.
In each lawsuit, the Democratic plaintiffs are asking the courts to reverse the boards of elections’ decision to disqualify the affected provisional ballots. In total, more than 3,200 ballots across the ten counties were disqualified.
Meanwhile, the Republican National Committee (RNC) and the campaign for U.S. Senate candidate David McCormick filed another lawsuit to disenfranchise voters. The lawsuit, filed in Lackawanna County, challenges the county’s board of elections’ decision to count 122 provisional ballots that were missing signatures from at least one election official. In total, the RNC and McCormick’s campaign have filed 12 lawsuits in Pennsylvania to try and disenfranchise voters. The DSCC and Casey’s campaign filed motions to intervene in the RNC and McCormick’s lawsuits in Chester, Erie and Philadelphia counties.
On Tuesday, both parties agreed in a Bucks County lawsuit filed by the RNC and McCormick’s campaign that no undated or wrongly dated mail-in ballots would be counted, citing the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s recent ruling.
Learn more about the post-election Pennsylvania lawsuits filed here.
In a flurry of new Pennsylvania election lawsuits, Republicans pushed to block ballots with minor mistakes from being counted while Democrats argued that not counting them violates the U.S. Constitution and a federal voting rights law.
Similar to the several other lawsuits filed over the past few days, David McCormick — a Republican candidate for U.S. Senate in Pennsylvania — along with the Republican National Committee and the state GOP, brought cases in Bucks and Monroe counties claiming that their election boards have unlawfully counted flawed ballots.
In Bucks County, the Republicans challenged the election board’s decision to count 100 provisional ballots missing signatures from either the voter or election officials in the 2024 general election.
In Monroe County, the GOP plaintiffs similarly sued to block the counting of provisional ballots missing the voter’s signature but also argued that dozens of mail-in ballots with undated or misdated envelopes shouldn’t have been counted.
On Monday, the Democrats filed their first post-election lawsuit in Pennsylvania. Democratic incumbent Sen. Bob Casey’s campaign, along with the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, sued the Philadelphia County Board of Elections over its decision to not count over 2,000 provisional ballots that were missing an outer envelope signature or were not enclosed in a secrecy envelope.
The Democratic plaintiffs alleged that the otherwise valid provisional ballots were disqualified solely based on flaws that were the direct result of inaccurate poll worker instructions — which therefore violates voters’ due process rights as well as the federal Help America Vote Act.
The Democrats asked a court to reverse the county board’s decision to disqualify thousands of provisional ballots for that reason.
Learn more about the post-election Pennsylvania lawsuits filed here.
Republicans filed four more lawsuits to stop the counting of certain ballots in the Pennsylvania general election — this time trying to block a total of over 1,500 ballots in four counties that are missing required signatures from voters, election officials or have other errors.
On Saturday, David McCormick, a Republican candidate for U.S. Senate in Pennsylvania, along with the Republican National Committee and the state GOP, sued the election boards in Chester, Erie, Montgomery and Philadelphia counties for counting certain provisional ballots.
A Pennsylvania voter may cast a provisional ballot if their mail-in ballot was rejected, their eligibility was challenged, their name wasn’t in the poll book at a voting site and many other reasons.
The GOP plaintiffs claimed that the Pennsylvania Department of State issued guidance on Nov. 7 that provisional ballots should be counted regardless of whether the voter affidavit was missing the signature of officials, such as the judge of elections or the minority inspector.
The Republicans argued that the four counties deciding to count these ballots violated state law, which requires provisional ballots to be signed by both the judge of elections and the minority inspector.
In two of the counties, McCormick and the other Republicans took it a step further — challenging provisional ballots without voter signatures in Montgomery County and votes from those in Philadelphia County who didn’t indicate the reason for casting a provisional ballot and whose voter affidavits had missing or incorrect information.
In all of the lawsuits, the Republicans asked courts to block the counties from counting these provisional ballots.
Chester, Montgomery and Philadelphia counties are some of the state’s largest Democratic counties and Erie County remains a pivotal swing county in Pennsylvania.
These lawsuits primarily impact the state’s U.S. Senate race. Last week, the Pennsylvania Department of State announced that it would conduct a recount of the Senate race since the margin was less than 0.5% — meeting the state’s criteria for an automatic recount. The recount results will not be released until Nov. 27.
As of Monday afternoon, Democratic incumbent Sen. Bob Casey had 48.6% of the vote and his McCormick had 48.8%. This margin has tightened up since last Wednesday when the recount was announced.
AP News called the race for McCormick early on, but other news outlets such as NBC News, CNN and The New York Times haven’t called it yet.
McCormick filed two more lawsuits in Pennsylvania in an attempt to block the counting of undated and wrongly dated mail-in ballots.
On Thursday, the RNC and McCormick filed a lawsuit in Centre County, challenging the Centre County Board of Elections’ decision to count three mail-in ballots submitted with undated or wrongly dated outer envelopes in the general election. The plaintiffs argue that this violates the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s decision in a similar recent lawsuit, which prohibited undated or wrongly dated ballots from being counted in the general election.
The plaintiffs then filed a nearly identical lawsuit in Philadelphia County on Friday challenging the Board of Elections’ decision to count 607 undated or wrongly dated ballots. In total, the RNC has filed four lawsuits to try and prevent the counting of undated or wrongly dated ballots in Pennsylvania.
These lawsuits come as the race between McCormick and incumbent Sen. Bob Casey (D) is within the margin to trigger a recount. McCormick is currently leading Casey with 48.9% of the votes to 48.5%.
As the extremely close Pennsylvania U.S. Senate race heads toward a recount, the Republican National Committee (RNC) filed a pair of legal actions to block undated and wrongly dated mail-in ballots from being counted in Bucks County.
The first is a lawsuit filed by the RNC and GOP U.S. Senate candidate David McCormick. The complaint seeks to stop the Bucks County Board of Elections from counting undated and wrongly dated mail-in ballots. According to the lawsuit, the Bucks County Board of Elections said on Nov. 12 that it would count 405 mail-in ballots “that did not comply with the date requirement.”
The lawsuit states that the decision to count these ballots does not comply with a previous order from the Pennsylvania Supreme Court regarding undated or wrongly dated mail-in ballots. Ahead of the general election, the state’s highest court consistently ruled that mail-in ballots must be properly dated.
In September, two Pennsylvania voters filed a lawsuit against the Philadelphia County Board of Elections challenging the board’s decision to not count mail-in ballots submitted with undated or wrongly dated outer envelopes in a special election for two state house districts.
Both the Court of Common Pleas and the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania ordered the board to count the ballots but the RNC intervened and took t the case to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. On Nov. 1, the state’s highest court granted the RNC’s request to pause the lower court’s ruling pending an appeal — meaning that the Philadelphia County Board of Elections can not count undated or misdated mail-in ballots in the general election. On Nov. 12, the RNC asked the Pennsylvania Supreme Court to review the case in full.
In a second legal action, the RNC filed a King’s Bench petition with the Pennsylvania Supreme Court asking the court to block all 67 Pennsylvania county boards of elections from counting mail-in ballots with undated or wrongly dated envelopes. The petition alleges that Bucks, Centre and Philadelphia Counties are all counting undated or wrongly dated mail-in ballots.
In a statement posted on X, RNC chairman Michael Whatley said that McCormick won the race against incumbent Democratic Sen. Bob Casey, without mentioning that the election is headed toward a recount. “Bob Casey lost and Democrat officials and lawyers are trying to sow doubt in the democratic process,” Whatley wrote.
According to Pennsylvania law, any race within a 0.5% margin can qualify for an automatic recount, so long as the losing candidate doesn’t waive it. According to the latest vote count, Casey is trailing behind McCormick by just 0.4% — 48.9% to 48.5%.