PHILADELPHIA — The Republican National Committee says it will intervene to oppose David McCormick’s lawsuit to count undated mail ballots in the ongoing vote count for the GOP Senate primary.
RNC chair Ronna McDaniel said in a tweet that the national committee, along with the state GOP party, would motion to intervene in the lawsuit filed Monday. In doing so both the RNC and the state party take the position of Mehmet Oz’s campaign.
“Pennsylvania law is clear: undated absentee ballots may not be counted,” McDaniel said. “Changing the rules while votes are being counted undermines the integrity of our elections and sets a terrible precedent for future elections.”
The RNC’s chief counsel, Matt Raymer said the opposition was not an endorsement of either candidate.
“The RNC is intervening in this lawsuit alongside the Pennsylvania GOP because election laws are meant to be followed,” Raymer said. “And changing the rules when ballots are already being counted harms the integrity of our elections. Either of Pennsylvania’s leading Republican Senate candidates would represent the Keystone State better than a Democrat, but Pennsylvania law is clear that undated absentee ballots may not be counted. This is another example of the RNC’s ironclad commitment to ensuring that the highest standards of transparency and security are upheld throughout the election process.”
McCormick filed a lawsuit Monday in Pennsylvania’s Commonwealth Court seeking to compel all of the state’s counties to count ballots that were received on time but were missing a handwritten date on their envelope — a defect would previously have led to them being rejected under state law. He based that request on a ruling in an unrelated case issued before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit, which found last week that the date — or lack of one — on the ballot envelope was irrelevant to the vote’s legitimacy.
Meanwhile, the law firm that lost before the 3rd Circuit pushed back. It told the 3rd Circuit’s judges Monday that it intended to challenge its decision at the U.S. Supreme Court — a move that could help the Oz camp. The law firm has also been representing the Oz campaign.
Oz and McCormick were separated by fewer than 1,000 votes Monday afternoon — well within recount territory under state law. McCormick, who has been trailing in the vote count, has pushed to count as many votes as possible and sees every additional vote as an opportunity to help close the gap. He’s also done better with mail ballots than Oz has.
