PHILADELPHIA — Despite having already been declared the winner by the Associated Press in his campaign to unseat incumbent U.S. Senator Bob Casey Jr. in Pennsylvania, David McCormick filed two lawsuits in Philadelphia Friday, challenging 15,000 to 20,000 provisional ballots that city elections officials were set to consider counting.
McCormick currently holds a 0.5% lead over Casey, with 98% of the ballots in Pennsylvania counted. He was projected as the winner by the AP Thursday afternoon, hours after claiming victory himself.
Casey has not yet conceded. In a statement Thursday after the AP's call, the incumbent Democrat said the margin was too close with too many ballots yet to be counted.
“I have dedicated my life to making sure Pennsylvanians’ voices are heard, whether on the floor of the Senate or in a free and fair election," Casey said. "It has been made clear there are more than 100,000 votes still to be counted. Pennsylvania is where our democratic process was born. We must allow that process to play out and ensure that every vote that is eligible to be counted will be counted. That is what Pennsylvania deserves.”
Philadelphia election officials are currently examining and adjudicating provisional ballots. According to McCormick's lawsuit, there are approximately 15,000 to 20,000 of them.
In the lawsuits, filed in the Court of Common Pleas in Philadelphia, McCormick's attorneys ask the court to allow McCormick to make "global challenges" to large groups of provisional ballots that share the same deficiencies, like "missing signatures on the affidavit, a provisional ballot envelope that lacks a secrecy envelope, or discrepancies where the required signature on the affidavit and the envelope do not match will render the ballot invalid and thus result in the ballot being excluded from the count."
The lawsuit also asks the court to sequester and hold provisional ballots from voters who had requested mail-in or absentee ballots, citing a recent Supreme Court decision.