Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa., on Thursday conceded his Senate election loss to Republican challenger Dave McCormick in a close race that triggered an automatic vote recount. File Photo by Archie Carpenter/UPI. | License Photo
Nov. 21 (UPI) — Democratic Sen. Bob Casey on Thursday conceded his the Pennsylvania U.S. Senate race to Republican challenger Dave McCormick.
“I just called Dave McCormick to congratulate him on his election to represent Pennsylvania in the United States Senate,” Casey said in a video post on X.
“During my time in office, I have been guided by an inscription on the Finance Building in Harrisburg: ‘All public service is a trust, given in faith and accepted in honor.’
“Thank you for your trust in me for all these years, Pennsylvania,” he added. “It has been the honor of my lifetime.”
McCormick’s win officially gives the Republican Party a 53-47 majority in the U.S. Senate.
McCormick won 48.8% of votes with 3.4 million while Casey obtained 48.6% with 3.38 million votes counted. Independent candidate John Thomas secured 1.3% of the votes with 89,587.
Casey’s concession ends a controversial counting of votes in Bucks County, Pa., in which an election official admitted to counting mail-in votes that the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled were invalid due to lacking a handwritten date on the return envelope.
Because McCormick led Casey by less than 0.5% after votes initially were counted, Pennsylvania law required a recount.
During the recount, two Bucks County election officials who are Democrats defied the state Supreme Court’s ruling and deliberately counted about 600 mail-in and unsigned provisional ballots that they knew were invalid.
Bucks County Commissioner Diane Ellis-Marseglia said the “precedent by a court doesn’t matter anymore in this country” and “people violate laws any time they want” while justifying her refusal to abide by the ruling by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court during a county meeting last week.
On Wednesday she apologized to residents during a county meeting, saying the “passion in my heart got the best of me.”
“I made a mistake, and because I am an election official, I am held to a far higher standard than everybody else,” Ellis-Marseglia told meeting attendees. “So, to the citizens I serve, I apologize, and I will continue to work hard for you and endeavor to not make such a mistake again.”
She said she and other county employees received death threats, and some people in the crowd heckled her and held up signs calling her a “tyrant.”
Many constituents have asked that she be prosecuted and demanded her resignation.
Bucks County Commissioner Robert Harvie also refused to deny the invalid mail-in and provisional ballots, saying every vote should be counted and instructions on the ballots weren’t clear.
