Dave McCormick’s campaign declares victory — again — but when is a win a win?

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Posted on 11/15/2024 1:08:27 PM PST by lightman

Dave McCormick’s top campaign strategist declared victory for his client in Pennsylvania’s U.S. Senate race, again. Lawyers for incumbent U.S. Sen. Robert P. Casey’s campaign battled in county courthouses across the state for dozens of votes here, hundreds there.

State officials, meanwhile, noted that with an automatic recount triggered, it will be Nov. 27 before anything is finally certified.

That was Thursday in the trench warfare that is the Pennsylvania U.S. Senate race.

But here’s the all-important context:

As of 5 p.m. Thursday, Republican McCormick was holding onto a 24,409-vote lead, or a margin of .35 percent.

According to data compiled by FairVote, an advocacy group election for better election policy for all, only three of 36 statewide elections across America that went to a recount between 2000 and 2023 saw a change in outcome; in all of those cases, the initial margin between the top two candidates was .06 percent or less.

McCormick aides declared Thursday that Casey, a three-term incumbent, has got no chance to get the margin down to that neighborhood.

By campaign strategist Mark Harris’s estimate, there are about 25,000 to 30,000 unchallenged ballots left to come into the count.

“They’re going to continue to gain a handful of thousands of votes as we move forward here just because of what is left,” he said, “but the inescapable reality is that tens of thousands of more Pennsylvanians voted for Dave McCormick than voted for Bob Casey.”

Everything else that’s still in play would be ballots that have been set-aside by local elections staffs because of errors or unresolved eligibility questions. Those are potential votes Casey’s team will have to fight to get back into the pool.

The Casey camp sees no reason to stop fighting now. In fact, they cloaked themselves Thursday in the noble cloak of champions for protecting the franchise for all voters.

Take this statement from Tiernan Donohue, Casey’s campaign manager: “While McCormick and his allies are working to disenfranchise voters in Pennsylvania and spread misinformation, we are working to ensure that Pennsylvanians’ voices are heard.”

They did that in various ways Thursday, from fighting for provisional ballots that they argue are being thrown out because of technical errors, to, potentially, seeking one more hearing on the eternal Pennsylvania issue of how to handle mail-in ballots that are not properly dated.

In Carlisle Thursday, an attorney for the Casey campaign asked the Cumberland County Board of Elections to count 52 provisional ballots that had been set aside because of improper signatures in an afternoon hearing.

Attorney Sam Milkes argued these voters may have gone to the polls that day not even knowing that they would be asked to cast a provisional ballot. As such, they were at the mercy of precinct election judges to make sure they did it right.

If they are otherwise properly registered voters, and “they did all that they thought they were supposed to do,” Milkes argued, those votes should be counted.

Board of Elections members, after a brief deliberation, rejected Casey’s argument. Democratic County Commissioner Jean Foschi, in explaining her vote, told Milkes she agreed with his argument but “the only way to fix this is through comprehensive election reform.”

The Casey campaign now has two days to appeal the Cumberland ruling in county court.

In other counties, the Casey campaign was asking election boards to re-examine voter registration rolls to pick up provisional voters that they are concerned may have had their votes set aside because they didn’t show up in the state’s SURE system.

On the statewide front, meanwhile, the McCormick campaign and its Republican allies asked the Pennsylvania Supreme Court to intervene to block a handful of counties - including heavily-Democratic Philadelphia - from including incorrectly dated mail-in ballots in their counts.

Philadelphia’s commissioners voted 2-1 Wednesday to do that, despite a Supreme Court ruling earlier this month in a separate case expressly telling counties that they were not to count undated ballots in this election. That could bring 645 additional votes into the pool in Philadelphia alone.

A handful of other counties have done the same.

That prompted the Republican National Committee to file an emergency petition Thursday asking the court “to reaffirm its ruling that the date requirement is mandatory and must be enforced in this election.”

The good news for Casey, if you’re looking for it, is that the Democrat is beating McCormick in both categories where the eligibility wars are being fought.

Casey’s polling ahead of McCormick 64.2 percent to 33.7 percent statewide in mail-ins; in provisionals, the margin is Casey 59.1 percent, McCormick 36.8 percent.

The good news for McCormick, if you’re looking for it, is that even if Team Casey won all its fights in every courthouse and courtroom, if those two vote shares hold up, the former Wall Street hedge fund executive will still be ahead of Casey heading into the recount.

As Harris proclaimed Thursday: “There is no path for Bob Casey to be leading heading into the recount. the math is simply not there for him.”

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Finally, some bad news for the impatient.

As definitive as McCormick’s camp has been this week, the final count is still being tabulated in many counties, and it will surely run into next week before all of the 67 county boards have certified their counts.

Counties have until Nov. 25 to submit final unofficial counts - outside of the recount - to the state.

According to data compiled by FairVote, an advocacy group election for better election policy for all, only three of 36 statewide elections across America that went to a recount between 2000 and 2023 saw a change in outcome; in all of those cases, the initial margin between the top two candidates was .06 percent or less.

1 posted on 11/15/2024 1:08:27 PM PST by lightman

To: fatima; Fresh Wind; st.eqed; xsmommy; House Atreides; Nowhere Man; PaulZe; brityank; Physicist; ...

2 posted on 11/15/2024 1:09:04 PM PST by lightman (Beat the Philly fraud machine the Amish did onest, ja? Nein, zwei they did !)

To: lightman

3 posted on 11/15/2024 1:14:51 PM PST by SharpRightTurn (“Giving money & power to government is like giving whiskey & car keys to teenage boys” P.J. O’Rourke)

To: SharpRightTurn

4 posted on 11/15/2024 1:17:00 PM PST by DaiHuy (I support LGBTQ. (Lets Get Biden to Quit.))

To: lightman

5 posted on 11/15/2024 1:18:49 PM PST by FlingWingFlyer (Jamaicans Haitians and Indians used to run motels and 7-11s. Now,they run Congress and the judiciary)

To: lightman

6 posted on 11/15/2024 1:18:57 PM PST by cgbg (It is time to pull the Deep State out of the mass media--like ticks from a dog.)

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