As part of its final vote count, Allegheny County will not tabulate mail-in ballots that arrived on time but lacked written dates on the outer envelope or had incorrectly written dates, officials said Monday.
Those specific types of ballots have generated controversy over the years and in the ongoing race for a Pennsylvania U.S. Senate seat.
Some Pennsylvania counties have chosen to count the controversial mail-in ballots for this year’s general election, even as the issue remains the subject of legal challenges.
At an Allegheny County Board of Elections hearing Monday morning, county officials announced there are 170 mail-in ballots with written date errors.
“Based on a previous decision from the (state) Supreme Court, Allegheny County Elections Division is not counting undated or misdated mail-in ballots,” said Abigail Gardner, spokeswoman for county Executive Sara Innamorato. “Luckily due to our very proactive curing process, the number of ballots in that universe is only 170.”
Curing is the process by which the county notifies voters of a problem with their ballot and allows voters to correct the errors.
It’s unclear how many mail-in ballots with date errors remain across Pennsylvania’s 67 counties.
Election officials in a handful of counties have opted to count undated and misdated ballots, leading to lawsuits from the Pennsylvania Republican Party.
In August, the state Supreme Court voided a Commonwealth Court ruling that the handwritten date requirements violated the state constitution. However, the state Supreme Court made its ruling on technical grounds and later declined to take up the case on its merits.
In September, the issue was brought up again concerning a Philadelphia special election, where Commonwealth Court ruled the contested mail-in ballots could be counted for that race.
The state Supreme Court affirmed on Nov. 1 that the Commonwealth Court’s decision applied only to the Philadelphia special election, not the general election. But the state Supreme Court again did not address the underlying question of constitutionality.
Republicans are calling on the state Supreme Court to declare that the date requirement on ballots is mandatory and that counties shouldn’t count such ballots that lack proper handwritten dates in this election or any in the future in order to comply with state statutes.
The effect of not counting mail-in ballots with date errors could impact the ongoing Senate race in which Republican businessman David McCormick leads by more than 17,000 votes over Democratic incumbent Sen. Bob Casey. McCormick was leading Casey 48.8% to 48.6%, as of Monday afternoon.
The Associated Press and Decision Desk have called the race for McCormick. Casey has not conceded.
Casey’s path to victory appears increasingly narrow as outstanding ballots are being counted. Decision Desk estimates that there are fewer than 22,000 ballots remaining statewide. But with the race margin within 0.5%, a legally required recount has been triggered.
The recount starts Wednesday.
No provisional ballots left
On Monday, the elections board voted on the county’s remaining 3,328 provisional ballots.
They approved 1,310 and rejected the rest for various reasons, including that voters were not registered in Allegheny County, not registered to vote at all or already voted by mail.
Of those approved, 240 were finalized since Republican campaign lawyers withdrew their challenges. The final 1,070 approved provisional ballots can be appealed by campaigns until Wednesday.
The board started with 12,680 provisional ballots.
There were numerous votes to approve and reject batches of ballots.
Approved ballots were supported by the board’s Democratic members — Innamorato and County Councilwoman at-large Bethany Hallam — and rejected by the board’s lone Republican member, county Councilman Sam DeMarco, who also leads the county’s Republican party.
Rejected ballots — such as ones cast by voters not registered in Allegheny County or not registered at all — where unanimously voted down.