If the Pennsylvania Senate race were a bottle of ketchup, Bob Casey and his team of lawyers have that sucker flipped upside down and are slapping the bottom furiously, trying to shake out every last bit onto their big, greasy plate of fries.
So unhealthy.
Losing Senate candidate Bob Casey and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) have joined forces in two local court cases urging county judges to ignore Pennsylvania’s clearly written election laws and plop more votes onto Casey’s plate.
But there still won’t be enough votes to cover the 17,502 vote gap between Casey and the winning candidate, Republican Dave McCormick. The results are close enough to trigger a recount, but Pennsylvania has never seen the results change after a recount, even in races that were far closer, according to Pennsylvania Department of State statistics.
Casey’s latest stab at finding more votes involves 74 ballots in Bucks County and 98 votes in Erie County, in creative cases filed Monday by the Elias Law Group, led by Democrat tool Marc Elias.
Crumbs.
Both cases blame poll workers for voter errors when casting improper ballots, and thus, they say, the ballots should be counted.
In Bucks, the county board of elections voted not to count 74 provisional ballots because they were not enclosed in secrecy envelopes.
Pennsylvania election law reads, “A provisional ballot shall not be counted if … a provisional ballot envelope does not contain a secrecy envelope.”
Casey’s case argues, “Voters who cast provisional ballots do so in person, in a process that requires the express direction of poll workers. In this environment, procedural errors made by voters in casting their ballots are necessarily a result of a poll worker’s failure to provide required material or correct and accurate instructions to voters. Where election authority error leads a voter to make a mistake in voting, or election authorities have induced voters to vote in a manner that is unlawful, rejecting those votes violates the federal Due Process Clause.”
The case also argues that the board’s ruling violates the Help America Vote Act (HAVA), asserting that HAVA “states that an individual’s provisional ballot ‘shall be counted … in accordance with state law’ if election officials determine that the individual is eligible to vote.”
Again, state law says a provisional ballot shall not be counted if it is missing the secrecy envelope.
In Erie County, the court filing makes the same arguments over a different ballot flaw: provisional ballots rejected because the voter signed the outer envelope once but failed to sign it a second time.
Pennsylvania law requires two signatures for provisional ballots, both on the provisional ballot envelope. One signature is for an affidavit swearing the voter resides in the municipality where he is voting, and the other must be signed on the front of the provisional ballot envelope when the secrecy envelope is placed inside.
The Erie case has almost the same wording as the Bucks filing: It is the poll workers’ fault if voters get it wrong, and the suit claims the votes should be counted.
But Pennsylvania law says, “A provisional ballot shall not be counted if … either the provisional ballot envelope … or the affidavit … is not signed by the individual.”
The Bucks and Erie County Courts of Common Pleas will sort out these last-ditch legal requests. If the judges follow Pennsylvania law and the cases don’t go Casey’s way, legal appeals are likely, which will draw out the entire process.
Meanwhile, election officials work on the recount, with results due to the Department of State by Nov. 26.
The McCormick team has said repeatedly that Casey has no mathematical path to victory, even if he wins his cases. The Associated Press saw this when it called the race for McCormick.
So why is Casey, himself an attorney, bothering to bend over to pick up pennies? Is it to test the courts or set legal precedents for future elections? Is it to underscore laws the state Legislature should rewrite?
Whatever the motive, Casey’s legacy of an unremarkable career in the U.S. Senate will be marred by this useless pursuit.
Beth Brelje is an elections correspondent for The Federalist. She is an award-winning investigative journalist with decades of media experience.
