Pa. halts statewide vote recount after Casey concedes Pa.'s U.S. Senate race

Pennsylvania’s automatic recount has ceased.

Secretary of the Commonwealth Al Schmidt announced Friday morning that a legally mandated recount in Pennsylvania’s U.S. Senate race has been stopped after Democratic incumbent Bob Casey conceded the race Thursday evening.

“Following Sen. Casey’s concession announcement yesterday afternoon, his campaign submitted a request to the Department of State to halt ongoing recount efforts,” Schmidt said in a statement. “Last night, the department informed county elections officials to cease their recount activities because Sen. Casey withdrew and continuing the recount would not be in the best interest of taxpayers.”

Allegheny and Westmoreland county officials confirmed to TribLive that they have ceased their recount efforts.

The recount was triggered last week because the race between Casey and Republican rival Dave McCormick was within 0.5 percentage points.

McCormick secured 48.8% of the vote to Casey’s 48.6%, defeating the three-term senator by about 16,000 votes.

More than 7 million ballots were counted in Pennsylvania’s final vote tally. Election officials across the state are also conducting two audits to “ensure every eligible vote cast in the Nov. 5 election is accurately counted,” Schmidt said.

A small number of provisional ballots are still awaiting decisions on legal challenges in some counties, including Allegheny.

After the state audits are completed, counties must certify election results by Nov. 25.

The recount was expected to cost taxpayers more than $1 million.

“We will have an updated estimate once counties submit their costs to the department for reimbursement, which will likely be in the next few weeks,” Matt Heckel, a department spokesperson, said Friday.