Pennsylvania court orders counting of undated mail ballots in win for McCormick
Source: Philadelphia Inquirer
A Pennsylvania court on Thursday ordered counties to include undated mail ballots — those that arrived on time but were rejected solely because they were missing a handwritten date on their outer envelopes — in their vote counts. The Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court on Thursday ordered counties to include undated mail ballots in their vote counts — a legal victory for GOP Senate candidate David McCormick who had sued to include them in his neck-and-neck primary race against Mehmet Oz.
In a 40-page opinion, President Judge Renée Cohn Jubelirer described the state’s practice of rejecting ballots that arrived without a required handwritten date from the voter on the outer envelope as a potentially unjust restriction of the right to vote.“The absence of a handwritten date on the exterior envelope could be considered a ‘minor irregularity’ without a compelling reason that justifies the disenfranchisement of otherwise eligible voters,” the judge wrote.
Cohn Jubelirer’s ruling Thursday came in the form of a temporary injunction ordering counties to include the undated mail ballots in their vote tally for the state’s May 17 primaries. But in a nod to the provisional nature of her decision, she instructed counties to submit two sets of election results to the state: one with the undated ballots included and one without. That will allow the state to use the correct total should the ruling be reversed.
If the final ruling mirrors the one she issued Thursday — and it withstands appeal — it would mean potentially thousands of votes are counted in future elections that previously would have been rejected. In the short term, however, it seems unlikely that the fresh votes that McCormick would pick up from among the roughly 800 undated Republican mail ballots in this year’s primary would be enough to push McCormick into the lead. He trails Oz by about 1,000 votes out of more than 1.3 million cast.
Read more: https://www.inquirer.com/news/oz-mccormick-pa-senate-race-undated-mail-ballots-ruling-20220602.html
Full headline: Pennsylvania court orders counting of undated mail ballots in win for McCormick in his GOP Senate race against Oz
I heard THIS early this morning.
To recap - this is a state court ruling on the first case actually associated with the U.S. Senate race and counting of undated ballots . ALL of the other cases and rulings (both state and federal, including the SCOTUS) were associated with the general election last November and a Lehigh County judicial race that got defacto "applied to" this later election.
= new reply since forum marked as read
then your vote is fraud 
So that should be one of the other factors. Otherwise, someone could scrawl "10/22/73" as a "date" and that is supposed to be "acceptable" because "a date" was there per the law and who cares WHAT date as long as it is on or before election day. 
I think they might narrow the race some but not put him over the top.
The more interesting thing about the ruling though, if upheld through to the state Supreme Court (who declined to hear the appeal of the Lehigh County judicial election case), is going forward into the general election with all the nitpicking the GOP plans to do to trash the election and mail ballots here (of course only in blue areas), even if those ballots got THEM elected (critical thinking is lost on them). 
Well that statement didn't age very well. 
I was just joking that the original statement didn't age well. 
You know I’m sure we would have no problem with the gas, electric company, mortgage company, landlord, or politician rejecting our payments if the envelope doesn’t have the required handwritten date on it…
With no late penalty of course! 
Yah that will work!
as long as it's on or before election day!
I.e., a date of "12/30/63" should be accepted as long as it was on or before November 8, 2022.
I'm very happy that these precedents are being set NOW, while the Repukes are fighting each other.
Later on in November, they're going to be turning on US.
One Republican is saying "the election is rigged" if they count the ballots and the other Republican is saying "the election is rigged" if they don't count the ballots.
So it's always "rigged" whichever way you look at it!
when the recount is officially supposed to be concluded and reported.
I know on occasion, candidates have "un-conceded", but in this case, I don't think he is going to be able to make up that gap.
I posted the below in another thread - https://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1014&pid=2926047
As of the Friday before this past Friday (5/27/22) before the recount began here (still had that version in a tab) - https://results.philadelphiavotes.com/ResultsSW.aspx?type=STW&map=CTY
PRIMARY ELECTION
RESULTS
MAY 17, 2022
Results last updated
5/27/22 7:36:24 PM EST
MEHMET OZ REP
Republican
37.62%
10,690
DAVE MCCORMICK REP
Republican
24.92%
7,082
TOTALS
Voter Turnout
23.58%
Total Ballots Cast 247,347
Registered Voters 1,048,790
Ballots Cast by Mail: 78,626
Ballots Cast at Polling Place: 166,378
Ballots Cast by Provisional: 2,343
And as of this past Tuesday when the city said they would complete their recount and report their results to the state (5/31/22) -
PRIMARY ELECTION
RESULTS
MAY 17, 2022
Results last updated
5/31/22 10:09:34 PM EST
MEHMET OZ REP
Republican
37.65%
10,718 = (+28)
DAVE MCCORMICK REP
Republican
24.91%
7,091 = (+9)
TOTALS
Voter Turnout
23.59%
Total Ballots Cast 247,411
Registered Voters 1,048,790
Ballots Cast by Mail: 78,633
Ballots Cast at Polling Place: 166,378
Ballots Cast by Provisional: 2,400
So with Philly, the largest city and county in the state, having completed it's recount and reported it to the state, it appears Oz actually picked up 28 votes and McCormick picked up 9 (am not sure if that tally included mail-ins but do figure it included accepted provisional ballots). And although we have some 45-humpers here, there are probably quite a few more "annoying Republicans" vs "QAnon Republicans" who could have voted for McCormick and that didn't seem to pan out.
What is interesting to note is that the last Senatorial race here was Bob Casey's seat in 2018 and the GOP primary turnout was probably 4K less than what we saw with this year's primary here in Philly (and 2018 was before Act-77 became law and allowed the no-excuse absentee/mail ballots).
Below from here - https://www.electionreturns.pa.gov/Home/CountyResults?countyName=PHILADELPHIA&ElectionID=63&ElectionType=P&IsActive=0
CHRISTIANA, JAMES J III
44.80%
6,167 Votes
BARLETTA, LOUIS J.
55.20%
7,599 Votes
(sorry I got all long in the post but I often bookmark these threads so I have the data/links handy
)
The Fetterman/Lamb race was a 2-1 blowout for Fetterman so there was no real issue regarding counting of undated ballots or not. For the "official tally", they would obviously do that regardless but in that race's case, it would not have an impact.
From here - https://www.electionreturns.pa.gov/Home/OfficeResults?OfficeID=2&ElectionID=94&ElectionType=P&IsActive=1
I suppose the tally for the Republican primary isn't completed yet because of the dispute though that should be settled...
I always look at their totals and compare with our side's totals, in an attempt to predict potential general election outcomes, the chances of our "guy's" victory.. Things can change, all sorts of dynamics in play. nail biter..
California's primaries feels really victorious even though the tallies are yet to be tabulated.
But from the last update on May 31st (I actually added up the totals of votes for each primary about 30 minutes ago for the heck of it), I got this -
(R) = 1,344,077 total votes
In the case of Democrats, there were 4 candidates and Republicans, there were 7.
Also (and I don't know if there was a significant number who did this) supposedly a number of Democrats claimed to have "changed registration" to purposely vote for Oz figuring he'd be the easiest to beat.
But what does happen here in PA during the General is that there is a good chunk of support for the Libertarian Party and they always manage to get at least 100,000+ votes. There is also some support for the Green Party and Constitution Party that adds to that but not as much as the Libertarian party. I don't know if they have a candidate in mind for Senate or Governor as I haven't researched that.
The issue is that Republicans had so many candidates running and Democrats only had 4 and given that the seat was held by a Republican (Teabagger Toomey), they felt they had a strong interest to pick a successor. Yet when it came time to do so, they ended up with an entertainer from NJ, after the GOP state leadership were freaking out trying to get people to vote for someone else.
And just as a note - here were the results when PA voted for Joe Biden in 2020 - https://www.electionreturns.pa.gov/General/SummaryResults?ElectionID=83&ElectionType=G&IsActive=0
