“Questions about provisional ballots remain as Casey and McCormick withdraw lawsuits”

Penn Capital-Star:

The Democratic and Republican parties will withdraw 20 lawsuits on behalf of their candidates for Pennsylvania’s U.S. Senate seat following incumbent Sen. Bob Casey’s concession Thursday to Senator-elect Dave McCormick.

Filed in more than a dozen counties, the cases challenged decisions by boards of election on whether to count provisional ballots with mistakes made by voters or poll workers. 

But with McCormick more than 16,000 votes ahead, Casey on Thursday evening called McCormick to congratulate him on the win. Hours later, the Pennsylvania Department of State called off a statewide recount triggered by the narrow margin of less than 0.5% of the vote, saying it was in the best interest of taxpayers.

More than 6,000 votes for Casey or McCormick hung on the outcome of the cases, with the McCormick camp arguing flawed ballots should be tossed and the Casey campaign arguing that some should be counted. 

Although each side had already won decisions, there was no reason to keep fighting and the parties reached mutual agreement to end the litigation, election lawyer Adam Bonin told the Capital-Star on Friday.

Lawyers for the Republican party did not return calls from the Capital-Star on Friday.

“We’re thrilled for the victories we had,” said Bonin, who filed some of the lawsuits on behalf of Casey’s campaign and the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee. “There were definitely strong arguments on appeal but that battle is for another day.”

Voting rights advocates, meanwhile, are looking ahead to renewed efforts to ensure voters who make a mistake on mail ballots are not disenfranchised. 

The Republican National Committee has asked the state Supreme Court to decide whether a requirement to write the date on mail-in ballots is constitutional. Voting rights groups agree the court should take up the issue. …

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