When I first heard the news that Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro had denounced efforts by his own party to count illegal ballots in the ongoing effort to steal the Senate election from Senator-elect Dave McCormick, I was actually surprised and thrilled that he would do such a thing. There's more to the story than the headlines, and we shouldn't trust Shapiro.
Shapiro was curiously silent for a long time about what was happening in his state, which was telling, but on Monday he released a statement that "any insinuation that our laws can be ignored or do not matter is irresponsible and does damage to faith in our electoral process."
That sounded like exactly what the doctor ordered, but there was some blatant gaslighting in his statement that makes it clear he's trying to play both sides of this situation.
"As I have made clear for years, every eligible Pennsylvanian’s vote should be counted in every race – and thanks to the hard work of Republican and Democratic election officials all across the Commonwealth, Pennsylvania has held another free, fair, safe, and secure election," his statement began. "As counties continued counting ballots from the 2024 general election and a mandatory statewide recount begins in the U.S. Senate race, they were confronted with a lack of legal clarity surrounding undated mail-in ballots that caused significant confusion and put counties in a challenging legal position."
Both my predecessor and I have repeatedly called on lawmakers to deliver greater clarity on mail-in voting – and due to certain legislative actors refusing to act on critical election reforms, this issue had been left to the courts.
Given this lack of clarity, county officials in each of our 67 counties were damned if they did and damned if they didn’t – likely facing legal action no matter which decision they made on counting.
Did you catch that? According to Shapiro, when officials in his own party decided to count illegal ballots, it was because there was a lack of "legal clarity." This is simply not true. The state's supreme court had ruled without any ambiguity that undated or improperly dated ballots should not be counted.
BREAKING: Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro denounces illegal vote-counting to benefit Bob Casey in Senate race
— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) November 19, 2024
"Any insinuation that our laws can be ignored or do not matter is irresponsible and does damage to faith in our electoral process. The rule of law matters in this… pic.twitter.com/cJmt31nTwB
Last week, in Bucks County, commissioners voted 2-1 to ignore the advice of their legal counsel and defy a ruling from the Pennsylvania Supreme Court on how ballots should be counted. Democrat commissioner Diane Marseglia made it clear that the commission was fully aware that its actions were illegal.
“I think we all know that precedent by a court doesn’t matter anymore in this country, and people violate laws anytime they want,” Marseglia said. “So for me, if I violate this law, it’s because I want a court to pay attention to it.”
This wasn't an issue of legal ambiguity; this was Democrat officials telling the state supreme court they simply didn't care.
David McCormick won a hard-fought victory over three-term Democratic Sen. Bob Casey, and every major outlet has called the race. Casey has lost, but he won't concede.
Absent a statement of Shapiro calling on Casey to concede the race, he's leaving open the door for a prolonged process where Casey can keep trying to find votes.
