David McCormick & Dr. Oz Fight In Court Over Undated Ballots In Pennsylvania GOP Senate Race

Republican Pennsylvania Senate candidates David McCormick and Mehmet Oz will take their battle over counting undated ballots to court following last Friday’s decision in the federal 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals that deemed undated ballots countable.

McCormick filed a lawsuit on Monday that would require election officials to count the ballots in light of Friday’s opinion. Oz believes that the ballots that have no date should not be counted. The national and state Republican parties have voiced support of former President Donald Trump-endorsed Oz’s position.

“Election laws are meant to be followed, and changing the rules when ballots are already being counted harms the integrity of our elections,” said the Republican National Committee chief counsel Matt Raymer.

The contentious Pennsylvania GOP primary race could be won or lost based on the undated ballots, and is especially important to McCormick because he has been doing better in mail-in ballots than Oz. Oz was leading by less than 1,000 votes as of Tuesday morning, which easily falls under the 0.5% margin that automatically triggers a recount in the state.

As the race was deemed too close to call late last week, both camps tapped Trump’s 2020 team to help them in the recount. McCormick brought on Mike Roman, who served as Trump’s Election Day operations while Oz added James Fitzpatrick, who was in charge of Trump’s Pennsylvania Election Day operations.

If there is a recount for the race, it must begin by June 1 and be completed by June 7. Whoever wins will take on Democratic nominee John Fetterman for retiring Republican Sen. Pat Toomey‘s seat in the general election in November.