The Republican Senate primary race in Pennsylvania keeps getting more bizarre.
The votes still aren’t fully counted yet and now, McCormick is suing to force the counting of mail-in ballots that weren’t dated properly when they were prepared:
DC EXAMINER – U.S. Senate candidate David McCormick has filed a lawsuit in a Pennsylvania court to compel the counting of Republican mail-in ballots submitted without a handwritten date on the outside envelope in a bid to close the gap with primary opponent Dr. Mehmet Oz.
The lawsuit, filed late Monday in the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania, asks the state to force all 67 counties’ boards of elections to count Republican mail-in ballots received on time but without a handwritten date on the outside envelope, as mandated by the statute. McCormick campaign lawyers are basing their case on a fresh decision by a federal appellate court that ruled such ballots should be counted in a dispute over a Pennsylvania election in 2021.
“Both the Pennsylvania Supreme Court and the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit have held that mail-in ballots should not be disqualified simply because the voters failed to hand write a date on the exterior mailing envelope of their ballots,” McCormick campaign Chief Legal Counsel Chuck Cooper said in a statement provided to the Washington Examiner.
“Because all ballots are time-stamped by the County Boards of Elections on receipt, a voter’s handwritten date is meaningless,” he added. “All timely ballots of qualified Republican voters should be counted.”
Oz led McCormick by .08 percentage points with most precincts reporting as ballots continued to be counted six days after the primary election. But McCormick says that he believes he won the nomination and insists he will overtake Oz once remaining Republican mail-in ballots are tallied. With some Election Day votes and a sizable number of mail-in ballots and overseas military ballots left to count, McCormick’s claims are viable.
Going to court, however, presents a political risk for McCormick, at least in the court of Republican public opinion.
Yep. That and the fact that the Pennsylvania GOP just completely put out a statement saying they don’t support this lawsuit at all:
I couldn’t agree more with the Pennsylvania GOP and I’m glad they aren’t supporting it. McCormick needs to accept what happens and let it go. Suing to win like this will just end up bad for him, especially if he succeeds.