Dr. Mehmet Oz, Dave McCormick Race Heads into Recount In Pennsylvania Senate Primary
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- Pennsylvania's acting secretary of state ordered a recount in the Republican U.S. Senate primary race. The latest numbers show Dr. Mehmet Oz leads Dave McCormick by a margin of just about 902 votes, but there are still a number of ballots left to be counted.
Statewide, there are 860 undated Republican mail-in ballots that the counties can decide whether or not to include. Bucks County is including 45 of theirs, and on Wednesday, Philadelphia officials said they will add more than 100 votes in their final result.
"The 902 vote difference between these two candidates is within the one-half of 1% margin that triggers a mandatory recount under state law," Pennsylvania Acting Secretary of State Leigh Chapman said Wednesday.
Pennsylvania's Republican Senate primary race is heading to a recount, and by the numbers, it's still too close to call with just 902 votes separating Oz and McCormick, 860 undated Republican ballots reported in 65 of 67 counties matter, along with 10,000 provisional and absentee ballots still left to count.
"Our position is that undated and incorrectly dated ballots should count," Chapman said.
Undated ballots have been a legal point of contention that for now are left up to the counties to decide. Wednesday morning, Philadelphia County voted to include theirs for the first time since the 2020 general election.
"There are around 2,000 undated ballots that we are going to count and of that, there are about 100 Republicans -- not enough in Philadelphia to change the senate race," Philadelphia Commissioner and Chair of Elections Lisa Deeley said.
Philadelphia's return board did not approve counting 1,096 naked mail-in ballots -- those mailed in without a security envelope.
"There is no reason for them not to be counted," Deeley said. "There's no question that we got that ballot back in time, there is no question that the voter is a qualified elector."
This is the seventh time in state history a recount has been ordered, and none have changed the result.
The recount must start by next Tuesday and be completed one week later.
It is expected to cost taxpayers more than $1 million.
