Republican David McCormick and Democratic Sen. Bob Casey are vying for Pennsylvania’s U.S. Senate seat (Capital-Star composite from official/campaign photos)
Pennsylvania Secretary of the Commonwealth Al Schmidt said Wednesday that the unofficial vote count for the U.S. Senate race between Democrat Bob Casey and Republican Dave McCormick is within the 0.5% margin, which means the race will go to an automatic recount under state law.
The Associated Press called the race for McCormick on Nov. 7, but Casey has not conceded, citing the large number of uncounted ballots. The same day the AP called the race, the Pennsylvania Department of State said there were 100,000 ballots yet to be counted.
McCormick has 48.93% of votes, and Casey has 48.5%, according to unofficial results, Schmidt said, a margin of 0.43%.
Schmidt’s office estimated that the recount will cost more than $1 million in taxpayer funds.
The state’s 67 counties must begin the recount by Nov. 20, and complete the recount by noon on Nov. 26, the Department of State said, and must report results to the secretary by noon on Nov. 27. Results of the recount will not be published until Nov. 27, Schmidt’s office said.
The recount marks the eighth time the state’s automatic recount provision has been triggered since the state passed Act 97 in 2004. Not all candidates opt in to participate in a recount, or concede so the recount ends or doesn’t take place. But in all four cases where a recount was carried out, the initial results of the election were affirmed, meaning the results remained unchanged.
According to Schmidt’s office, the four recounts that took place since 2004 were:
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The 2022 GOP primary for U.S. Senate between McCormick and Mehmet Oz, which cost the state $1,052,609
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The 2021 general election, between Democrat Lori Dumas and Republican Drew Crompton for Commonwealth Court, which cost $1,117,180
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The 2011 Democratic primary for Commonwealth Court between Kathy Boockvar and Barbara Behrend Ernsberger which cost $525,006.70
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And the 2009 general election for Superior Court between Anne Lazarus, Robert Colville and Temp Smith, which cost $541,698.56
A McCormick campaign spokesperson said Wednesday that a recount would be “a waste of time and taxpayer money” but added it was Casey’s prerogative.
“Senator-Elect McCormick’s lead is insurmountable, which the AP made clear,” McCormick spokesperson Elizabeth Gregory said in a social media post “McCormick knows what it’s like to lose an election & is sure Senator Casey will eventually reach the right conclusion.”
The Casey campaign did not immediately reply to a request for comment following Schmidt’s announcement.
McCormick held a victory party in Pittsburgh on Friday, and on Tuesday, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s office said McCormick and Senator-elect Ruben Gallego of Arizona had been invited to freshman Senator orientation.
In a statement Tuesday morning, Casey thanked election officials for continuing to count the ballots. “Our county election officials will finish counting those votes, just like they do in every election,” he said. “The American democratic process was born in Pennsylvania and that process will play out.”
While Schmidt determined whether a recount had been triggered, the campaigns and their supporters were accusing each other of failing to respect the will of voters. The Casey campaign pointed to a lawsuit that the GOP filed Tuesday seeking to reverse an Oct. 30 Commonwealth Court ruling that mail ballots with missing or incorrect dates must be counted.
“David McCormick and his allies are trying to disenfranchise Pennsylvania voters with litigation designed to throw out large tranches of votes that they’ve admitted in legal filings could impact the outcome of the election,” Casey campaign manager Tiernan Donohue said in a statement earlier Wednesday. “Senator Casey wants all Pennsylvanians’ voices to be heard as local county election officials continue to count votes. This democratic process must be allowed to play out to determine the result of this election.”
The argument McCormick is making in the latest case differs from the one he and his attorneys made in 2022, when the outcome of the GOP primary for U.S. Senate was decided by less than 1,000 votes, and went to a recount. McCormick’s attorneys sought to have undated mail ballots counted in the 2022 race, which McCormick ultimately conceded to Mehmet Oz.
A new television ad paid for by the conservative outside spending group Fair Election Fund calls Casey and the Democrats “sore losers” and points out that Casey called for President-elect Donald Trump to concede in 2020 to respect “the peaceful transfer of power.”
Trump famously did not concede and attempted to overturn the results of the election, which President Joe Biden won.
Recounts in Pennsylvania
The last time a statewide recount was triggered in Pennsylvania was McCormick-Oz in 2022.
At the local level, groups of at least three voters in a precinct can request a recount if they believe fraud or errors took place. That kind of recount only affects votes cast in the voters’ precincts, which is generally a small number of voters. There are a total of about 9,000 precincts across Pennsylvania’s 67 counties.
Jill Stein, the 2016 Green Party presidential nominee, attempted to stage a recount of that year’s presidential election in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania. Her campaign filed requests challenging results in more than 100 precincts across Pennsylvania, alleging concerns about the integrity of electronic voting machines, but dropped the effort after a Pennsylvania court required a $1 million bond to cover the costs.
Recounts are rare, and notoriously difficult to win, according to an October analysis by Fair Vote, a nonpartisan organization that advocates for ranked choice voting. It found that of the nearly 7,000 statewide general elections nationally between 2000 and 2023, there were 36 recounts. Of those, only three resulted in reversals, and happened in elections where the margin of victory was less than 0.06%. The last time a statewide recount led to a reversal was the 2008 U.S. Senate race in Minnesota, which gave the win to Al Franken.
The Department of State said Wednesday that there were 60,366 uncounted provisional ballots and 20,155 uncoutned mail and absentee ballots, for a total of 80,521 ballots that county boards of election “have not yet made a final resolution regarding their validity or eligibility to be counted.”
Most recounts shift only a small number of votes, Fair Vote found, and, usually widen the gap between the winner and the runner up rather than narrowing it.
This is a developing story
