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The Republican Senate primary in Pennsylvania will head to a recount as Dr. Mehmet Oz’s lead shrank to less than a thousand votes Wednesday.
Acting Secretary of State Leigh Chapman announced the recount Wednesday, and the process will take several days before a winner is officially declared. Pennsylvania law requires an election to go to a recount when candidates are within half a percentage point of each other.
Votes were originally cast in the primary on May 17.
“We are proud our campaign received nearly 418,000 votes, won 37 of 67 counties, and contributed to a historic turnout with a razor-thin difference between myself and Mehmet Oz,” CEO Dave McCormick, who trails Oz by 902 votes, said in a statement.
PENNSYLVANIA GOP SENATE PRIMARY RACE REMAINS TOO CLOSE TO CALL
“This narrow difference triggers an automatic recount, and we look forward to a swift resolution so our party can unite to defeat socialist John Fetterman in the fall,” he added.
Republican candidate for a Pennsylvania U.S. Senate seat, Dave McCormick, and his wife Dinah Powell talk to supporters during his returns watch party on May 17, 2022, in Pittsburgh.
(AP Photo/Keith Srakocic)
McCormick had previously attempted a lawsuit to ensure that mail-in ballot votes lacking a handwritten date would be counted. The Republican National Convention and the Pennsylvania GOP intervened in an attempt to block the lawsuit, however.
“The RNC is intervening in this lawsuit alongside the Pennsylvania GOP because election laws are meant to be followed, and changing the rules when ballots are already being counted harms the integrity of our elections,” RNC chief counsel Matt Raymer said in a statement.
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“Either of Pennsylvania’s leading Republican Senate candidates would represent the Keystone State better than a Democrat, but Pennsylvania law is clear that undated absentee ballots may not be counted,” Raymer added. “This is another example of the RNC’s ironclad commitment to ensuring that the highest standards of transparency and security are upheld throughout the election process.”
McCormick’s lawsuit pertained to a May 20 federal court ruling that allows for undated mail-in ballots to be counted. The Republican argues that handwritten dates are irrelevant because county boards stamp such ballots with a date on receipt.
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“Both the Pennsylvania Supreme Court and the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit have held that mail-in ballots should not be disqualified simply because the voters failed to hand write a date on the exterior mailing envelope of their ballots,” Chuck Cooper, chief legal counsel for McCormick’s campaign, told Fox News Digital Tuesday. “Because all ballots are time stamped by the County Boards of Elections on receipt, a voter’s handwritten date is meaningless. All timely ballots of qualified Republican voters should be counted.”
The Oz campaign has yet to release a statement regarding the recount.