The Pennsylvania Supreme Court on Monday affirmed its previous ruling that counties may not count mail-in and absentee ballots that have missing or incorrect dates or signatures, and intervened to immediately exclude misdated and undated ballots from the count. The ruling comes amid an ongoing automatic recount in the razor-close race between Republican Senator Elect David McCormick and Democrat incumbent Senator Bob Casey.
“It was a 7-0 decision not to count the votes that Casey and his D allies tried to slip through,” noted former Bush White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer on X. “This is a sad way for Senator Casey to end his career. He should have spoken out against this. So too should Governor Shapiro.”
Several Democrat-controlled elections boards had defied the previous ruling, counting hundreds of such ballots in recent days. Philadelphia, Montgomery and Bucks counties voted last week to count the illegal ballots.
During a meeting last Thursday, Bucks County commissioner Diane Ellis-Marseglia (D) argued that “precedent by a court doesn’t matter anymore in this country. And people violate laws anytime they want. For me if I violate this law, it’s because I want a court to pay attention to it.”
McCormick and the RNC filed an emergency petition with the state Supreme Court last week to stop the counties from counting the illegal ballots.
Justice David Wecht rebuked the Dem-led election boards, stating in the terse opinion that “it is critical to the rule of law that individual counties and municipalities and their elected and appointed officials, like any other parties, obey orders of this Court.”
“The Court hereby ASSUMES its King’s Bench authority … only to DIRECT that all Respondents, including the Boards of Elections in Bucks County, Montgomery County, and Philadelphia County, SHALL COMPLY with the prior rulings of this Court in which we have clarified that mail-in and absentee ballots that fail to comply with the requirements of the Pennsylvania Election Code …. SHALL NOT BE COUNTED for purposes of the election held on November 5, 2024,” the ruling reads.
“We just confirmed with our attorneys that the Bucks County Board of Elections will comply with todays PA Supreme Court Order will not count undated and misdated ballots and these votes will be removed from the County’s vote totals,” the Bucks County GOP posted on X.
The ballots’ relevance has particularly come into focus as Pennsylvania’s Senate race heads to an automatic recount. Republican Dave McCormick leads by just under 20,000 votes, and Decision Desk HQ, The Hill’s partner, projected him as the winner last week, but incumbent Sen. Bob Casey (D) has not yet conceded.
The Associated Press called the race for McCormick, an Army combat veteran and former hedge fund CEO, on November 7.
“Today’s ruling is a massive setback to Casey’s attempt to count illegal ballots after Bucks County & others blatantly violated the law in an effort to help him,” said McCormick spokeswoman Elizabeth Gregory in a statement following the ruling. “Senator-elect McCormick is very pleased with this ruling & looks forward to taking the Oath of Office in January.”
McCormick currently leads Casey 48.84 percent of the vote to 48.59 percent of the vote.
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