Voters wait in line to cast their ballots at the Kingston Armory in Wilkes-Barre, Pa, Tuesday, Nov. 5, 2024. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)
By MARC LEVY Associated Press

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — Pennsylvania’s state Supreme Court on Monday weighed in on a flashpoint amid ongoing vote counting in the U.S. Senate election between Democratic Sen. Bob Casey and Republican David McCormick, ordering counties not to count mail-in ballots that lack a correct handwritten date on the return envelope.
The order is a win for McCormick and a loss for Casey as the campaigns prepare for a statewide recount and press counties for favorable ballot-counting decisions. The Democratic-majority high court’s order reiterates the position it took previously that the ballots shouldn’t be counted in the election, a decision that three Democratic-controlled counties nevertheless have challenged.
The Associated Press called the race for McCormick last week, concluding that not enough ballots remained to be counted in areas Casey was winning for him to take the lead.
As of Monday, McCormick led by about 17,000 votes out of almost 7 million ballots counted — inside the 0.5% margin threshold to trigger an automatic statewide recount under Pennsylvania law.
Republicans last week had asked the court to bar counties from counting the ballots, saying those decisions violate both the court’s recent orders and its precedent in upholding the requirement in state law that a voter write the date on their mail-in ballot’s return envelope.
Democratic-majority election boards in Montgomery County, Philadelphia and Bucks County voted to count the ballots that lacked a correct date, echoing election officials around the state who say the date tells them nothing about a voter’s eligibility or a ballot’s legitimacy.
Republicans maintain that the date is a critical element of ballot security.
At first, the GOP also asked the court to block the count in Centre County, but later said the county had only counted three ballots that GOP officials found to be reasonable.
Statewide, the number of mail-in ballots with wrong or missing dates on the return envelope could be in the thousands. However, most counties — including several heavily populated counties controlled by Democrats — didn’t count them.
Democrats cast more mail-in ballots than Republicans, and Democrats in the past have supported counting ballots that trip over what they view as meaningless clerical requirements in state law.
Various courts have ruled against the dating requirement in at least a half-dozen cases — including once by the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals — but higher courts have always reinstated it.
Meanwhile, the state Supreme Court has put off ruling on a pending case that calls into question whether the law violates the constitutional right to vote.
McCormick took a position aligned with Democrats in his failed eleventh-hour bid to close the gap in votes with celebrity heart surgeon Dr. Mehmet Oz in Pennsylvania’s Republican primary contest for U.S. Senate.
In that case, McCormick’s lawyer told a state judge that the object of Pennsylvania’s election law is to let people vote, “not to play games of ‘gotcha’ with them.”
___
Follow Marc Levy at twitter.com/timelywriter

(File Photo)

Noah Haswell, Beaver County Radio News

(Harrisburg, PA) The vote between Democrat Bob Casey and Republican Dave McCormick is heading to a recount of the votes, but one Republican, Pennsylvania House Republican Leader Bryan Cutler is calling out Casey to give up after Casey still will not accept the result of McCormick having more votes. According to a release from him in Harrisburg on Friday, Cutler admitted that Casey is trying to do anything to win, including trying to count ballots that are not legal, which does not adhere to the norms of judicial practice as well as upholding the law, which Casey has proclaimed publicly. Cutler is urging for Casey to admit defeat as soon as possible, because Cutler believes Pennsylvanians need to know that this election needs to be legal Cutler also noted that counties including Bucks and Centre, along with the city of Philadelphia, have also participated in going against the law of reversing the anticipated result of McCormick earning the seat for the United States Senate. 

(File Photo)

(Reported by Danielle Smith of Keystone News Service)

An environmental group in Pennsylvania is among those backing a global plastics treaty set to be finalized by year’s end. It’s estimated that  ninety-nine percent of plastics are made with fossil fuels, and southwestern Pennsylvania is a hotspot for fracking. Sarah Martik with the Center for Coalfield Justice says she’ll attend the treaty negotiations in South Korea, and is urging the Biden-Harris administration to ratify it. The U.S. initially supported production caps and timelines to curb plastics production, but recently withdrew that support. Martik says countries that don’t sign environmental agreements can’t trade with those that do without causing global strain. Martik says the Biden-Harris administration is responsible for negotiating the treaty. She notes President-elect Donald Trump has expressed disinterest in environmental agreements and plans to withdraw the U.S. once again from the Paris Agreement, although global leadership on environmental issues is crucial for long-term benefits. 

(File Photo)

(Reported by Beaver County Radio News Correspondent Sandy Giordano, Published on November 18th, 2024 at 8:23 A.M.)

The superintendent of Central Valley School District is retiring. On January 17, 2025, Dr. Nick Perry will be retiring from the district, the announcement was made at last Wednesday’s school board work session. The board will be working with the Beaver Valley Intermediate Unit to search for a new superintendent. 

(Photo courtesy of Ambridge Bourough Manager Mario Leone)

(Reported by Beaver County Radio News Correspondent Sandy Giordano, Published on November 18th, 2024 at 8:18 A.M.)

Ambridge’s Streetscape projects now have an update. Borough Manager Mario Leone reported that a new storefront facade improvement is being made for the future site of Cafe Nero. Contractors poured the first sidewalk ADA ramp in front of R&S Enterprises and Ambridge Bricklayers started working on the sidewalks last Monday at Wholesale Tire. Last Wednesday, twenty yards of concrete were poured in the 900 block near Merchant Coffee and the Verizon building

On Monday, November 18, 2024, plans are to have the concrete poured at Fermata Brewing’s entranceway. 

Leone told Giordano that all work is being done weather permitting.