A 'waste of taxpayer funds': Pennsylvania's 'frivolous' ballot recount law proves fruitless and frustrating

15 December 2022

Some Pennsylvania midterms elections have not yet been confirmed due to a significant amount of recount requests, reports NBC News.

Seemingly planned by conservatives, ballot recount requests hit a total of 172 voting precincts across the state – although not one race appeared to be tight enough for a recount. So far, 19 recounts were approved by judges.

However, the recounts don’t seem to have made any difference in election results, leading one local judge to advocate for the end of the recount law. According to NBC, Pennsylvania's law states that “recounts must be done for all election districts where ballots were cast in a given race. For statewide contests, that would mean all precincts in a county. There is an exception to permit more narrow recounts if the petitioners claim ‘a particular act of fraud or error occurred’ and they provide some evidence to support that.”

A Democratic Congressional winner Chris Deluzio shared his thoughts on the impact of recounts on candidates. “I think if people are able to come to the courts and delay certification results without any real evidence, that’s a problem, and I see some abuse of that process here,” Deluzio said.

Democratic political consultant Brittany Crampsie’s take is that [the recounts] are entirely political and [are] a waste of taxpayer funds.” She believes, “as long as Donald Trump and his acolytes remain prevalent in the Republican Party,” these types of tactics will continue.

One judge’s thoughts towards recount requests are that there should be “specific claims of error or fraud” attached to the request.

“A sustained failure to address this deficiency will continue to burden the courts, elections bureaus, elections boards, county executive branches and the voting public by allowing manufactured challenges without a scintilla of evidentiary support to any and possibly all election certification processes in future elections,” said Judge Harry Smail Jr.

Typically, because there’s often no error found, the requests are fruitless.

“These petitions are unsuccessful largely because they’re not grounded,” said Rep. Leanne Krueger of the House Democratic Campaign Committee. “And every time there’s a request for the county board of elections to do something like this, they are forcing the spending of taxpayer money on elections that have already been decided.”

On the other hand, Pennsylvania GOP organizations have bolstered a couple of recount requests, which could also be inspired by Audit the Vote PA, which launched after due to their accusations of a rigged 2020 presidential election.

“It’s our sacred vote, and this movement isn’t going away and people aren’t going to shut up,” co-founder of Audit the Vote PA, Toni Shuppe said during a virtual event.

The Associated Press reached out to Pennsylvania’s Department of State and did not receive a clear date for when election results will be confirmed. However, the agency will send proof of confirmation to Congress “by mid-December" to adhere to the request for confirmation from the clerk of the U.S. House, and submit

A county clerk, who’s also a Republican, told the Philadelphia Inquirer, “We’re way, way, way outside the margin of error, and these are just frivolous requests from people who can’t accept the results of an election.”

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