Senator John Fetterman (D-PA) said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union” that there will be no impact on the election outcome when asked about Bucks County election commissioner Diane Ellis-Marseglia saying her county would count ballots without signatures in defiance of a Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruling.
Partial transcript as follows:
JAKE TAPPER: Your colleague Senator Bob Casey, who was up for reelection, there’s a commonwealth-mandated recount going on right now because it was so close. He’s trailing by 18,000 votes behind Dave McCormick. Democratic officials in at least one key county, Bucks County, voted to count about 115 provisional ballots that miss — that are missing a signature, despite the Pennsylvania Supreme Court previously ruling that those are invalid.
I want you to take a listen to how one Democratic Bucks County commissioner justified her actions.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DIANE ELLIS-MARSEGLIA: I think we all know that precedent by a court doesn’t matter anymore in this country and people violate laws any time they want. So, for me, if I violate this law, it’s because I want a court to pay attention to it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TAPPER: So “The Washington Post” editorial board called that — quote — “corrosive to democracy” unquote — and said — quote — “County officials do not get to decide whether a legal requirement is material and must be followed. Courts do and they have spoken clearly” — unquote.
What’s your take, what’s your response to that Democratic official deliberately announcing that they’re going to defy court orders and count these provisional ballots?
FETTERMAN: Well, again, I’m not going to chase every kinds of quotes, things like that, because I think you just pointed out that it refers to about 115 ballots, and that’s not going to have an impact on this race at this point.
So what’s — where we are now, it’s very, very close. And I guarantee you, if Dave McCormick were in the opposite situation, where he was down 15,000 to 17,000 votes, he would absolutely want to have every last vote counted as well too. And Bob Casey has never claimed fraud. And I think it’s really interesting now all of the Republicans and the
conservative people on Twitter aren’t talking about, oh, they’re cheating, they’re having all kinds of a thing, after Trump won. No one’s claiming that there’s any kinds of actual cheating on our side.
Calling and counting every vote — and that’s where we’re at. And that’s the law. And when it’s finished, and if Bob Casey comes up short, I can almost guarantee that he’s going to do the right thing and concede. So that’s the thing.
But my point, no one’s making an argument that there’s any kinds of cheating or thing on our side. It’s like, hey, let’s — we’re going to count every last vote.
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