Nov. 18 (UPI) — Pennsylvania’s Supreme Court ordered state county election officials on Monday to not count “invalid” mail-in ballots in the U.S. Senate race between Democratic Sen. Bob Casey and his Republican challenger, Dave McCormick.
In a 4-3 vote, the court ordered elections officials to exclude misdated and undated ballots from their count. Final results of Pennsylvania’s recount are expected on Nov. 27.
“It is critical to the rule of law that individual counties and municipalities and their elected and appointed officials, like any other parties, obey orders of this Court,” wrote Justice David Wecht.
McCormick and Casey are within 0.5% of each other in their race for Casey’s Senate seat. McCormick currently leads Casey by 17,700 votes, according to the latest election results from the Pennsylvania Department of State.
As Pennsylvania’s senate election results mandate a statewide recount, certain mail-in ballots have been disputed as to whether they should be added to the count. The ballots in question arrived on time but were in envelopes that did not have the correct dates handwritten by voters.