The two Democratic members of the Bucks County Commission voted to count ballots the Pennsylvania Supreme Court determined are illegal in a previous ruling, with the county specifically giving election workers orders to count mail-in votes returned with an incomplete, incorrect, or missing date.
Despite the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruling on November 1 that ballots mailed without correct dates would not be counted, with voters instead told to cast a provisional ballot that would be counted instead, the two Democratic members of the Bucks County Commission voted to accept ballots with missing or incorrect dates.
Board chair Diane Ellis-Marseglia and Vice chair Bob Harvie successfully voted on Thursday to accept the ballots in defiance of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, while Secretary Gene DiGirolamo, the only Republican commissioner, brought forth a motion to block counting of the ballots due to the high court’s November 1 ruling.
“I’m not going to second that, mostly because I think we all know that precedent by a court doesn’t matter anymore in this country, and people violate laws anytime they want,” Ellis-Marseglia said in response to the motion.
She then suggested Bucks County’s decision to operate with disregard to the court ruling is an effort to compel further action from the Pennsylvania Supreme Court.
“So for me, if I violate this law, it’s because I want a court to pay attention to it,” said Ellis-Marseglia in a clip that went viral on the social media platform X, receiving nearly 35 million views at press time.
https://twitter.com/BucksGOP/status/1857129301092807028
A full video recording of the Bucks County Commission meeting that occurred on Thursday is absent from both the county government’s Facebook page and YouTube channel despite recordings of earlier meetings available in their entirety.
The Pennsylvania Republican Party, Republican National Committee, and political campaign for Senator-elect Dave McCormick filed suit on Friday to block the Bucks County decision as the commonwealth prepares for the recounted results in the race between McCormick and Senator Bob Casey (D-PA), who is more than 26,000 votes behind the Republican.
While the Associated Press called the race for McCormick last week, and despite experts declaring Casey’s vote deficit is “insurmountable,” the Democrat has refused to concede the race, and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer initially moved to exclude McCormick from a Senate orientation meeting.
That effort dissolved after multiple Republican senators vowed to personally escort McCormick to the orientation, with Schumer ultimately inviting McCormick to participate. Senators have continued defending McCormick in the aftermath of the Bucks County decision.
Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR) declared the Bucks County decision “a reprehensible, flagrant, and illegal attempt to steal an election for Bob Casey.”
Cotton called on Casey to “denounce” the county’s decision, and declared, “the DOJ – if not now, in January – should prosecute any lawbreakers.”
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Tom Pappert is the lead reporter for The Tennessee Star, and also reports for The Pennsylvania Daily Star and The Arizona Sun Times. Follow Tom on X/Twitter. Email tips to [email protected].
