Recount triggered in Pennsylvania Senate race as McCormick heads to D.C., Casey declines to concede
Sen. Bob Casey is not giving up on retaining his U.S. Senate seat. The three-term Democrat is currently locked in a tight race with Dave McCormick, trailing the Republican by just over 29,000 votes as of 4 p.m. Wednesday. CBS News has not issued a projection in the race.
Pennsylvania Secretary of the Commonwealth Al Schmidt announced Wednesday afternoon that unofficial results in the race have triggered a statewide recount.
That’s because vote totals for McCormick and Casey are within a 0.5% margin, which triggers a statewide recount under state law.
According to the Department of State, as of 4 p.m. on Thursday, Casey received 48.53% of the vote with 3,359,086 votes and McCormick had 48.90% with 3,385,115.
Counties must begin the recount by Nov. 20, the announcement says. Counties must finish the recount by noon on Nov. 26 and report the results to the secretary of the commonwealth by Nov. 27 at 12 p.m.
In a livestreamed press conference Thursday, Schmidt shared more details about the recount. Counties will begin the recount as soon as they finish counting all of the votes the first time, he said. As of Wednesday afternoon, there were about 80,000 ballots left to be counted. That includes about 20,000 mail-in and absentee ballots and about 60,000 provisional ballots.
During the recount, Schmidt said, counties will use “a different method or different equipment to tabulate the results” than they used in the initial tally to identify any potential issues.
The deadline for counties to certify election results this year is Nov. 25. Counties will certify all results except the Senate race by that day and will certify the Senate results as soon as their recounts are complete, Schmidt said.
The results of the recount will be published online Nov. 27, which is the day before Thanksgiving, Schmidt said. In the meantime, the elections return page on the state website will continue to update as counties update their unofficial vote tallies in the original count, Schmidt said. These updates are separate from the recount.
In a statement Wednesday, McCormick’s spokesperson Elizabeth Gregory said, “Senator-Elect McCormick’s lead is insurmountable, which the AP made clear in calling the race. A recount will be a waste of time and taxpayer money, but it is Senator Casey’s prerogative. Senator-Elect McCormick knows what it’s like to lose an election and is sure Senator Casey will eventually reach the right conclusion.”
According to an earlier statement from the Pennsylvania Department of State, Casey’s campaign did not waive an automatic recount by noon Wednesday.
Casey has not made a public appearance since his election night watch party in Scranton, but he posted a video on his social media accounts Tuesday.
“The American democratic process was born in Pennsylvania, and that process will play out,” he said in the video on X.
Meanwhile, McCormick is moving forward. The businessman declared victory during a speech in Pittsburgh Friday, and he has spent this week in Washington going through the Senate orientation process.
“The people have spoken. There’s a clear, clear victory,” McCormick said last week.
CBS News Philadelphia reached out to both campaigns Wednesday, but neither made the candidates available to speak.
Casey’s campaign has said it’s been waiting for outstanding votes from around the state, from mail-in ballots to overseas and military votes and provisional ballots. In Philadelphia, the state’s largest county and one where Casey has garnered more than 78% of the vote, commissioners say the number of votes left out there is running thin.
“We had about 20,000 provisional ballots to start with. We’ve already counted 11,000 of those,” city commissioner Seth Bluestein said Wednesday.
Bluestein told CBS News Philadelphia the election board wrapped up voting on outstanding mail-in votes Wednesday. He says a few thousand could not be counted for various reasons, mostly a lack of a signature or secrecy envelope.
As for the remaining provisional ballots, Bluestein said the board will take those up on Friday. But he warned, “most of those will probably end up not getting counted.”
The recount will cost more than $1 million in taxpayer funds, the Department of State estimates. Schmidt said Wednesday that the most recent legally triggered recount — in the 2022 Senate primary between McCormick and Mehmet Oz — cost about $1,053,000.
McCormick files lawsuit against Bucks County
Bucks County officials on Tuesday made the decision to count 405 mail-in ballots that had incorrect or missing dates on the outer envelopes.
“The courts I believe will take this up, so we’re going to get sued either way. I’d rather be on the side of counting ballots than not counting them, is my thought,” Bob Harvie, the chair of the Bucks County Board of Elections said prior to voting in favor of counting the ballots.
Now, a lawsuit’s been filed on behalf of Dave McCormick, the Republican Party of Pennsylvania and the Republican National Committee against the Bucks County Board of Elections for voting 2 to 1 in favor of counting those ballots.
The lawsuit says in part, “The Board’s baffling decision not to enforce the date requirement and to count noncompliant ballots thus directly contravenes binding Pennsylvania law.”
Dating issues on mail-in ballots has been a long-time controversy in Pennsylvania. Last month, the state supreme court ruled mail-in ballots with missing or incorrect dates should be tossed for this election.
The RNC and the Republican Party of Pennsylvania are also asking the state Supreme Court to order election officials in all 67 counties to not count undated or misdated mail ballots.
A statement Thursday from the RNC said it filed the lawsuit “to defend the dated ballot requirement, a critical election integrity safeguard, and to stop radical Democrats from counting illegal ballots as Bob Casey tries to steal the election.”
In a statement, the Casey campaign accused McCormick and his allies of trying to disenfranchise Pennsylvania voters.
