No, Pennsylvania Democrats Aren’t Trying to Steal Senate Election
MAGA has a new conspiracy theory: Pennsylvania Democrats are trying to steal the Senate election because of how they’re counting provisional ballots.
The Senate race is headed to a recount after an incredibly narrow margin of difference between the top two candidates. Last week, former Republican hedge fund manager Dave McCormick was announced the winner of Pennsylvania’s Senate race with 48.9 percent of the vote, at 99 percent reporting. His opponent, incumbent Democratic Senator Bob Casey, lost with 48.5 percent.
The two sat at a difference of only 29,000 votes Wednesday, and statewide, officials have estimated that nearly 80,000 votes remained outstanding as of Thursday, according to The Philadelphia Inquirer. Casey, who has not yet conceded his seat, has remained hopeful that buried in that remaining 2 percent of the states’ total ballots are enough votes to make up the difference. And Pennsylvania’s Republican secretary of state has already declared the initial results necessitate a recount.
The battle for the remaining votes has ignited long-standing issues between Republicans and Democrats in the state over what ballots are able to be counted. Democrats are pushing to count a number of contested provisional ballots that are missing signatures and privacy envelopes, and election boards across the state are also pushing to count a number of undated ballots.
Bucks County Commissioner Diane Ellis-Marseglia cast a vote Thursday to count certain deficient provisional ballots that were missing one of two required signatures and had previously been barred by court order.
“I think we all know that precedent by a court doesn’t matter anymore in this country,” said Marseglia.
“People violate laws any time they want,” she continued. “So, for me, if I violate this law it’s because I want a court to pay attention. There’s nothing more important than counting votes.”
Technocrat pest Elon Musk shared a video of Marseglia on X, claiming, “They are openly trying to count illegal ballots in Pennsylvania!”
McCormick and his GOP allies went to court on Thursday to challenge the decisions of county commissioners in Philadelphia, Bucks, Montgomery, and Centre counties to include undated mail ballots in their tallies.