As vote counting continues this week in Pennsylvania’s tight Senate race, attention once again turns to the largest and most hotly contested remaining slice of votes that could help the incumbent Democrat. Bob Casey fill its deficit.

At least four counties — including Philadelphia, Bucks, Montgomery and Center — voted to include thousands of undated and misdated mail-in ballots in their final tally, in apparent defiance of previous rulings by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court.

This decision gave rise to two new lawsuits from the Republican candidate on Thursday. Dave McCormick and his GOP allies seeking to block them — and, in McCormick’s case, a reversal from his position in 2022, when he pushed courts to order the inclusion of undated ballots amid another close race, his race in the GOP primary that year against TV doctor Mehmet Oz. .

Heading into last week’s race, the matter seemed settled. State Supreme Court justices twice ruled that for the 2024 election, counties would have to reject absentee ballots submitted by voters who did not write the correct date on their ballot envelope, as required by state law.

Now, rebel votes from some counties and the ongoing fight between Casey and McCormick — who currently leads his rival by just over 25,000 votes — threaten to reopen the debate.

“Various county boards are seeking to change the rules of the election at the thirteenth hour,” lawyers for the Republican National Committee and the Republican Party of Pennsylvania wrote Thursday in a filing asking the Pennsylvania Supreme Court to reiterate its position under which undated ballots should be rejected this year. year.

“By counting undated and incorrectly dated ballots for the 2024 general election, they repeatedly disobey the orders of this court,” the attorneys continued. “At best, they are confused; at worst, they openly defy the authority of this court.

Although the votes from Philadelphia, Bucks, Montgomery and Center counties will almost certainly be overturned in court, they continue a recent trend of the majority commissioners in all four counties voting to include undated ballots.

None of the commissioners who supported their inclusion framed their vote in terms of the current Senate race.

Instead, they argue that the dates are useless since election officials don’t use them to determine whether a ballot was received on time. Rejecting them, they say, unfairly disenfranchises thousands of voters each year. Some also pointed out a recent ruling from the state’s Commonwealth Court which concluded that the decision to exclude undated ballots during a special election in Philadelphia earlier this year amounted to a violation of voters’ rights guaranteed by the state constitution.

But for Casey, these votes could prove particularly important in his bid to retain the Senate seat he has held since 2007.

However The Associated Press called the race for McCormick last weekCasey has not yet conceded and said he does not intend to do so until all legally cast ballots have been counted. While the margin separating the candidates currently sits below 0.5%, the State Department declared a statewide recount Wednesday.

» LEARN MORE: The Pennsylvania Senate race between Dave McCormick and Bob Casey will be recounted. How will it work?

Since Democrats are largely more likely to vote by mail than Republicans, Casey will likely benefit the most from the inclusion of mail-in ballots that would have been rejected for missing or incorrect dates.

That’s doubly true in many of the counties that voted to include them this year — particularly in Philadelphia — where Casey outperformed McCormick in the overall vote.

It is unclear how many undated or incorrectly dated ballots were submitted by voters across the state in this election. The State Department estimated earlier this week that there were about 20,000 mail-in ballots left to count across the state as county election boards met to decide the various vote challenges.

As the Bucks County Board of Elections met earlier this week to decide the fate of about 400 undated or incorrectly dated ballots in their county, the commissioners ignored the advice of the attorney’s county to reject them in accordance with recent decisions of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court.

“I just can’t vote to reject them,” Commissioner Diane M. Ellis-Marseglia said, citing her hesitation to unnecessarily disenfranchise any voter in the county. “I just can’t.”

She and board president Bob Harvie voted for their inclusion.

McCormick’s campaign appealed the decision, suing the board in Bucks County Common Pleas Court Wednesday evening.

“The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has clearly enjoined this action,” wrote his attorneys Walter Zimolong and Joseph A. Cullen.

McCormick previously fought to have undated ballots counted in his equally close 2022 GOP primary race against Oz.

“The only reason these voters were disenfranchised was a technical error that has no significance under either state or federal law,” his lawyers wrote in legal papers. at the time.

Casey’s campaign was quick to pounce Thursday on what it billed as a blatant reversal by McCormick, calling him “hypocritical” and “further proof of his determination to disenfranchise Pennsylvania voters.” vote”.

As of Thursday afternoon, no hearings had been scheduled in the GOP challenges before the Pennsylvania Supreme Court or the Bucks County Court of Common Pleas.

But McCormick’s campaign insisted that no matter how the upcoming court battles and ongoing recount play out, they remain confident he will emerge victorious in the race.

“There is an impossible truth to all of this,” said Mark Harris, the campaign’s senior strategist. “When the counting is complete, Dave will win by tens of thousands of votes. It won’t be close.