The tantalizingly close GOP U.S. Senate primary race between Dr. Mehmet Oz (31.2% of the GOP vote, 419,365 votes as of May 25) and David McCormick (31.1%, 418,463 votes) warrants a recount in Pennsylvania, says Leigh M. Chapman, Pennsylvania's acting secretary of state.
But that's not the most unusual thing about this senatorial battle.
Rather, eight days have passed since the Pennsylvania primary precincts closed — and approximately 10,000 absentee or mail-in ballots remain uncounted.
Chapman says that 65 of the 67 counties have reported more than 800 undated Republican ballots and thousands of undated Democratic ballots.
So, how does a recount occur with so many votes still hanging in the balance?
On Wednesday's"Spicer & Co.," James Schultz, former general counsel to the Pennsylvania governor and former Trump White House lawyer, said, "Typically, you'll know the results on election night, based on the votes" counted.
But when the Oz-McCormick race "is this close, and you have to count every vote, the thing gets a little arduous for the counties, and that's something the state Legislature in Pennsylvania really needs to take a look at," Schultz said.
He then added on Newsmax: "This process is way too long."
Schultz shared his rooting interest for McCormick with co-hosts Sean Spicer and Lyndsay Keith. More than anything, however, he wants to make sure Pennsylvania officials get this Senate vote count correct.
"There's a lot of work to be done, in terms of getting those votes counted by the counties," Schultz said. "Not only are [election officials] dealing with election issues, they're also dealing with this, county by county ... and it does prolong the process."
A potential holdup between the Oz and McCormick camps? Schultz said that thousands of absentee ballots have been erroneously called into question, for various reasons.
"This is really simple," said Schultz, when discussing "valid ballots" that arrived to the Pennsylvania county courthouses within the proper time window. "The [ballot] date is immaterial in this case, because they're actually time-stamped ballots."
Nevertheless, the Republican National Committee has pledged to get to the bottom of the Pennsylvania counting debates as a means of ensuring "election security" for the November midterms — and beyond.
In this case, however, Schultz said the RNC should simply let the process play out.
The RNC's argument ''really doesn't make sense. The [disputed] ballots came into the courthouses time-stamped as timely," he said. "It's the time stamp that counts, and that's why these ballots need to be counted."
The RNC is "disenfranchising Republican voters who posted a valid ballot, and made sure it got to the courthouse on time," Schultz declared. "This really isn't a difficult case."
via newsmax