Recount starts in Allegheny County for GOP Senate primary race between Oz, McCormick

ALLEGHENY COUNTY, Pa. — Allegheny County will start its recount of the GOP Senate Primary race between Dr. Mehmet Oz and Dave McCormick at 8 a.m.

Related coverage: Acting Secretary of State: Recount required in PA Republican primary race for U.S. Senate seat

The county could be key in deciding the very close race. Here’s why: Fewer than 950 votes separate McCormick and Oz.

That number does not include the mail-in ballots being disputed. On Tuesday, the Supreme Court issued a hold on a lower court ruling that said election officials must count mail-in ballots from voters who didn’t write the date on their ballot envelopes.

McCormick wants the undated ballots counted and filed a lawsuit in an attempt to get them counted.

Meanwhile, lawyers for the Republican National Committee argued the state law is quite clear that undated ballots should not be counted.

Counties have been directed to tally the undated ballots but to keep them separate from the others, pending what ultimately is decided by the judge.

LIVE UPDATES BELOW:

UPDATE 6/1/22 1:06 p.m.

Allegheny County provided the following updated:

“The number of ballots cast in Allegheny County breaks down like this: 196,642 in-person ballots, 92,224 mail-in and absentee ballots, and 1,799 provisional ballots. The numbers provided previously were estimates and were, obviously, incorrect.

As of 12 Noon, 70,645 of the 196,642 (or 36%) in-person ballots had been scanned.

There is not an updated number yet of the number of mail-in and absentee ballots scanned, but that number at 11:15 AM was approximately 65,000. With the corrected universe of 94,224, 69% of those ballots have been scanned.”

UPDATE 6/1/22 12:15 p.m.

The Elections Division has recessed for lunch and will reconvene at 1:00 p.m.

As of 11:15 a.m., approximately 56,000 of the 218,000 (or 25%) in-person ballots had been scanned.

Approximately 65,000 of the 84,000 (77%) mail-in and absentee ballots have been scanned.

Additionally, the provisional ballots which were challenged and voted on by the Election Board on Friday were not appealed. 26 of the 30 ballots were to be counted – 24 were full counts and two were partial counts. There were seven votes for Oz added and 11 votes for McCormick added.

Judge hears arguments in lawsuit filed by Dave McCormick over undated ballots

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