SCRANTON, LACKAWANNA COUNTY (WBRE/WYOU) — Lackawanna County began its recount of ballots in the closely contested senate race between Bob Casey and David McCormick Tuesday.
All counties across Pennsylvania are required to start their recount by Wednesday.
The recount was automatically triggered due to the narrow margin between incumbent Democrat Bob Casey and Republican David McCormick.
The process also comes amid controversy over 449 provisional ballots the Lackawanna County Board of Elections reviewed those ballots last week, rejecting more than half for errors like missing voter signatures, missing election official signatures, or missing secrecy envelopes.
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Only 103 provisional ballots were ultimately counted in total, the county is recounting 85,319 in-person ballots and 31,304 mail-in ballots.
"So when you're doing a recount the ballots have to be counted in a different manner, than they were originally counted, so all of our mail-in ballots are being counted on a high-speed scanner and the election day ballots are being counted on our 3 450 high-speed scanners that we originally used to count our mail-in. The provisional ballots are scanned in a different manner and they'll be cast to the side so they're not included in what we are doing right now they will be done in the adjudication process," explained Elizabeth Hopkins, Director of Elections.
Hopkins says they expect to finish the recount by Wednesday.
