by Nick Pope
Democratic Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro said Democrat officials trying to count deficient ballots in the state did so because of a lack of “legal clarity,” despite the state supreme court’s pre-election orders to not count undated or misdated ballots.
Shapiro released the statement on Monday after the state supreme court ruled that mail-in and absentee ballots that do not comply with state election code will not count as the Senate race between defeated Democratic Pennsylvania Sen. Bob Casey and Republican Senator-elect Dave McCormick heads to recount. Shapiro said that the supposed lack of “legal clarity” is what prompted county-level officials to count deficient ballots in violation of state law.
“As counties continued counting ballots from the 2024 general election and a mandatory statewide recount begins in the U.S. Senate race, they were confronted with a lack of legal clarity surrounding undated mail-in ballots that caused significant confusion and put counties in a challenging legal position,” Shapiro said in his statement. “Both my predecessor and I have repeatedly called on lawmakers to deliver greater clarity on mail-in voting – and due to certain legislative actors refusing to act on critical election reforms, this issue had been left to the courts.”
“Given this lack of clarity, county officials in each of our 67 counties were damned if they did and damned if they didn’t – likely facing legal action no matter which decision they made on counting,” the statement continued.
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court made clear before the election that undated or misdated ballots were to be thrown out, but that did not stop officials across the state from trying to interpret election law for themselves and count the deficient ballots, according to The New York Times.
Notably, Democrat Bucks County Commissioner Diane Ellis-Marseglia stated openly that she does not care for existing legal precedent on Thursday when she moved to count deficient ballots in the county. Ellis-Marseglia subsequently apologized for the impacts of her Thursday comments and blamed others for misinterpreting an “inartfully worded statement on my part,” according to The Philadelphia Inquirer.
Other than Bucks County, efforts were also made to count deficient ballots in Philadelphia County, Montgomery County and Centre County, according to the Inquirer.
“As we move forward, I want to be clear: any insinuation that our laws can be ignored or do not matter is irresponsible and does damage to faith in our electoral process,” Shapiro said in his statement. “The rule of law matters in this Commonwealth, and as I have always said, it is critical for counties and officials in both parties to respect it with both their rhetoric and their actions.”
Casey endorsed counting deficient ballots in an op-ed published just hours before the state supreme court made clear again that such ballots will not be counted in the 2024 elections. The Associated Press, which has called the race for McCormick, projects that McCormick is leading Casey by about 17,000 votes as of Tuesday morning.
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Nick Pope is a reporter at Daily Caller News Foundation.
Photo “Gov Josh Shapiro” by Gov. Josh Shapiro.
