One of the most watched U.S. Senate contests is playing out in Pennsylvania, where Democratic candidate and Lt. Gov. John Fetterman faces Republican celebrity doctor Mehmet Oz.
On the eve of Election Day, Fetterman’s campaign joined a lawsuit against the Pennsylvania Secretary of State arguing that mail-in ballots with no date or incorrect dates should be counted just like any other ballot.
The campaign is asking a federal judge to quickly rule that election officials count tens of thousands of so-called spoiled ballots. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled last week such ballots should not be counted and should instead be set aside for future consideration. Under the Commonwealth’s voting laws, voters are required to handwrite the date on the envelope before returning mail-in ballots. If voters believe they submitted an undated or incorrectly dated ballot, there is a defined process under Pennsylvania law for requesting a new ballot.
Fetterman has led race for most of the year, despite suffering a stroke in May, but the first and only debate between the candidates totally upended the race. During that debate, voters saw for the first time that the Fetterman campaign had been concealing the true extent of the injury caused by Fetterman’s stroke. After the debate, Fetterman’s poll numbers began to slide.
The Fetterman campaign is filing the suit because mail-in ballots tend to be cast disproportionately in favor of Democratic candidates like Fetterman.
In other words, a Democratic senate candidate is calling on a judge to bend the rules in the 11th hour to help him win a race that could determine whether Republicans take control of the Senate.
Also today, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre attempted to set expectations for when Americans might expect to learn about election results, telling the White House press corps that it might not be election night.
“We may not know all the winners of elections for a few days,” she said. “It takes time to count all legitimate ballots in a legal and orderly manner.”
Read the full story from the Philadelphia Inquirer here.