McCormick campaign and Pennsylvania GOP sue counties that insist on taking irregular votes

Democratic county officials in Pennsylvania have admitted to accepting illegal votes, contrary to a state court ruling for the 2024 election. Officials in several counties thus hope to reverse the outcome of the race for a Senate seat between Dave McCormick and Bob Casey.

In connection with all these incidents, McCormick's campaign team and the Republican National Committee have asked the Pennsylvania Supreme Court to reaffirm the ruling. In a statement, Pennsylvania Republican Party Chairman Lawrence Tabas said, "What is happening in these counties is an absolute illegality."

McCormick's campaign separately sued Bucks County to challenge the county board of elections' decision to count 405 of those ballots. The lawsuits against Center County and Philadelphia were due Thursday night, Republican lawyers said.

Meanwhile, Casey's campaign and the Pennsylvania Department of State have responded with legal motions arguing that the counties should be left alone and that the court need not intervene as the challenges work their way through the appeals process.

Democrats ignore court ruling

The allegations were picked up by the Philadelphia Inquirer, who interviewed several Pennsylvania county officials that are still counting the 80,000 votes that remain to reach 100% counted.

In Pennsylvania, McCormick has gained a lead and has been declared the winner in the AP projection by a margin of about about 26,000 votes over Democrat Bob Casey. The remaining votes to be counted represent just over 2% of the total.

But Democrats refuse to accept defeat and continue to hold out hope that Casey will emerge victorious and overcome the 26,000-vote margin that separates him from McCormick. To this end, some Democratic officials are counting votes that have been incorrectly, incompletely or irregularly cast. This involves completely ignoring the Pennsylvania Supreme Court rulings.

The court ruled before the election that mail-in ballots lacking the formally required signatures or dates should not be included in the official results. Bucks, Centre and Montgomery Counties are where Democrats would be ignoring the ruling.

"I think we all know that precedent by a court doesn’t matter anymore in this country," Bucks County Commissioner Diane Ellis-Marseglia, a Democrat, told the Philadelphia Inquirer. Last Thursday, this Democrat voted to recount certain deficient provisional ballots, previously banned by court order, on which voters failed to sign in one of two required boxes.

"People violate laws any time they want," Ellis-Marseglia added. "So, for me, if I violate this law it’s because I want a court to pay attention. There’s nothing more important than counting votes." These Democrats claim that disobeying the ruling is respecting the constitutional right of those who cast their ballots incorrectly.