HARISBURG, Pennsylvania (AP) – The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday temporarily blocked the counting of some Pennsylvania mail ballots, an order that could affect auspicious Republican Senate elections between former hedge fund chief executive David McCormick and prominent cardiologist p. Mehmet Oz.
Judge Samuel Alito’s order paused the lower court’s decision in the disputed 2021 local court election, which would allow the counting of ballot papers by mail that did not have a handwritten date.
The Third U.S. District Court of Appeals in Philadelphia ruled that the U.S. election law’s requirement for a date until the voter’s signature on the outside of the back envelopes is “insignificant” and there is no reason to discard such ballots.
Based on this decision, the state advised the counties to count these ballots in the McCormick-Oz race, and McCormick immediately went to court to force the counties to continue.
The race is currently in the midst of a nationwide recount until June 8, with Oz ahead of McCormick in the original 922 votes out of more than 1.3 million votes cast – although some counties have not yet finished counting each vote. newsletter in May. 17 primary elections.
As McCormick seeks ballots to make up for the difference with Oz, Alito’s order could freeze McCormick’s case in Pennsylvania courts.
The Pennsylvania State Department – which is monitoring the election – did not say on Tuesday whether it would change its constituency guidelines on how to deal with ballots.
An action by the US Supreme Court, called an administrative suspension, froze the issue until it could give further consideration to the case. There is no schedule for the Supreme Court’s initiative and the McCormick clock runs until June 8.
McCormick’s campaign insisted that Alito’s order did not affect his case in the British Commonwealth State Court and that the Federal Court of Appeals’ opinion “remains the persuasive body” on the provision of the Federal Civil Rights Act on which it bases its decision.
McCormick did better than Oz in the mail ballots, and his campaign said it counted about 860 undated Republican mail ballots received from 65 of the state’s 67 counties. Counting undated ballots will not put McCormick above the top against Oz, but it could help narrow the race.
Some counties have already agreed to count the undated ballots sent by mail, while others have not, saying they are waiting for legal clarity.
State law requires voters to write the date on the envelope in which they send their ballots by mail. However, the handwritten date is not used to determine whether the ballot was submitted on time, as the envelope bears a postmark from the post office and a time stamp from the counties when they receive it.
In any case, the counties have recognized the acceptance of ballots with wrong dates.
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court rejected McCormick’s request to intervene on Tuesday, just after a judge in the lower state court of the British Commonwealth heard three hours of arguments in the case.
Meanwhile, McCormick’s campaign on Tuesday asked the British Commonwealth Court to recount 150 districts in 12 counties.
McCormick’s campaign said it was aimed at polling stations where there were an unusually large number of machine-readable ballots that did not register a vote in the GOP Senate primary. This may indicate errors in electronic scanners, says McCormick’s campaign.
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Sherman reported from Washington.
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Follow Mark Levy on Twitter at twitter.com/timelywriter. Follow the AP to fully cover the midterm elections on apnews.com/hub/2022-midterm-elections and on Twitter at twitter.com/ap_politics.
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