HARRISBURG, Pennsylvania (AP) – When the Philadelphia Electoral Board prepared to count the ballots last year that were mailed without the voter’s handwritten date, Republicans threatened to remove them. Before GOP Senate candidate David McCormick accepted his race on Friday, he wanted counties to take the same approach.
In a recent bid to close a roughly 900-vote gap with Dr. Mehmet Oz, former hedge fund chief executive David McCormick called for the ballots to be counted by undated mail. Finally, he acknowledged on Friday that there were not enough ballots left to make up the difference.
McCormick had insisted that he simply wanted all Republican votes counted in a contest that will decide the GOP candidate for one of the most-watched Senate races this year. But by calling for undated ballot papers to be counted, McCormick put the GOP in an awkward position after the party spent most of two years ridiculing those votes as “illegal” along with a broader hug of former President Donald Trump’s lies about widespread lies. fraud in the 2020 campaign.
“Now it looks like we might be fine for something if it affects the race the way you want it to,” said Mike Barley, a Republican campaign strategist in Pennsylvania who has no Senate candidates.
The national and state party fought McCormick in state courts, and the U.S. Supreme Court could rule on the matter any day. In any case, most Republicans believed that McCormick could not get the votes back on a count, regardless of whether the undated ballots were counted.
More registered Democrats vote by mail in Pennsylvania than registered Republicans, possibly as a result of Trump’s baseless defamation of the postal vote as full of fraud.
Until now, Republican Party leaders had strongly supported the idea that ballots should be thrown away without the voter’s handwritten date on the envelope.
The law, they argued, is clear at this point, even if that date handwritten in a ballot envelope has no role in determining whether a voter is eligible or whether the vote is cast on time.
Then, three days after the May 17 primary election, a federal appeals court ruled in a local court election case last year that throwing these ballots violates federal federal law. civil rights.
While trying to find the votes to overcome the Trump-backed Oz, McCormick argued that “all Republican votes should count,” and in court, his attorney, Charles Cooper, told a state judge that the object of Pennsylvania’s electoral law is to let people vote, “don’t play with them.”
McCormick’s stalking was a blow to Republicans, who last year threatened to oust Philadelphia election officials after they moved to count those ballots and accused state judges of stealing a seat in the state Senate. in 2020 when they ruled that ballots could be counted in that year’s election.
This time, however, Republicans did not detonate the judges or threaten to remove county ballot counters.
“Not at the moment, because he’s still in litigation,” said Republican State Representative Seth Grove, who chairs the committee that drafts election-related legislation.
In court, the Republican National Committee and the state Republican Party opposed McCormick. The party, however, was not united in this effort.
For example, the Butler County Republican Party, which backed McCormick, did not take sides in the fight, said County GOP President Al Lindsay.
Counties that already counted undated ballots, without being required, included Republican counties, both large and small.
Sam DeMarco, chairman of the Republican Party in the densely populated Allegheny County, said he was unaware that Republicans had changed their minds about the law.
Rather, he has heard Republican complaints about McCormick “because they think that’s what Democrats would do.”
In any case, it is probably better to fight in a Republican primary than to leave it for the general election, he said.
“I just want to get a final verdict, and I’m personally happy that it’s happening now, in some primaries, more than in November, where the real seat would be at stake,” DeMarco said.
McCormick’s concession provides for a November general election between Oz and Democratic Gov. John Fetterman, who said Friday he nearly died in the days before his primary after suffering a stroke.
Despite McCormick’s award to Oz, The Associated Press has not declared a winner of the race because an automatic count is being made. Pennsylvania Secretary of State is scheduled to release the results of the count on Wednesday.
Barley, the campaign strategist, said the perception that the party had changed its position, or that some Republicans, however, set a dangerous precedent.
“What happens in November if you don’t get out and then you don’t want them counted?” he asked.
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Follow Marc Levy on Twitter at twitter.com/timelywriter.
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