(19 Nov 2024)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Allentown, Pennsylvania – 19 November 2024
1. Worker bringing ballots to scanning machine.
2. Close-up of worker’s hand pressing touchscreen
++ PARTIALLY COVERED ++
3. SOUNDBITE (English) Tim Benyo, Lehigh County Voter Registration:
“We are at the Lehigh County Government Center, recounting United States Senator race for the 2024 general election. Pennsylvania, by law, there is an automatic recount done when any race is less than a half percentage point difference.”
4. Ballots going through tabulator
5. Close-up of ballots going through tabulator
6. Tim Benyo working on closed circuit monitors, then walking out of frame
++ PARTIALLY COVERED ++
7. SOUNDBITE (English) Tim Benyo, Lehigh County Voter Registration:
“I believe we had about 190,000 or so ballots. It’s a statewide race. So every ballot that was cast on November 5th includes the senator race. So we have to recount every ballot. They all need to be accounted for. Make sure that we have the correct numbers, that our numbers match what was cast versus what was recorded on Election Day and then recorded again today during the recount.”
8. Close-up of worker tidying ballots
9. Close-up of paper marked “ballot tray”
10. Wide of workers at tabulating machines
11. Observers sitting in chairs
++ COVERED ++
12. SOUNDBITE (English) Tim Benyo, Lehigh County Voter Registration:
“Each of those batches placed within a tabulating machine, which basically just scans the race again, only this race that we’re, we’re recounting, and tabulates the votes given for whatever candidate. The machines are counting accurately and fairly and securely the results of the votes that were cast by the voters of Lehigh County.”
STORYLINE:
The recount underway in Pennsylvania’s U.S. Senate race marks the end of a chaotic post-election period that has become the latest example of how disputed election rules can expose weak points in a core function of American democracy.
The ballot-counting process in the race between incumbent Democratic Sen. Bob Casey and Republican David McCormick has become a spectacle of hours-long election board meetings, social media outrage, lawsuits and accusations that some county officials are openly flouting the law.
The Associated Press called the race for McCormick on Nov. 7, concluding that not enough ballots remained to be counted in areas Casey was winning for him to take the lead.
As the race headed toward a recount, which must be concluded by next Tuesday, Republicans have been claiming that Democrats are trying to steal McCormick’s seat by counting “illegal votes.” Casey’s campaign has said Republicans are trying to block enough votes to prevent him from pulling ahead and winning.
A big part of the dispute has centered around the date requirement on the return envelope that contains a mail-in ballot.
Republicans say state law and court precedent is clear and that mail ballots must be discarded if their envelopes don’t meet the criteria. Democrats insist that ballots shouldn’t be tossed out because of what they call technicalities.
Several Democratic-controlled county election boards have been counting mail-in ballots in which the voter either wrote the wrong date on the return envelope or didn’t write one at all, despite the state Supreme Court saying just days before the election that such ballots shouldn’t be counted.
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