Pennsylvania
Election recounts in Pennsylvania, explained
This story is made possible through Votebeat’s collaboration with Spotlight PA and its Elections 101 series, protecting you against election misinformation and empowering you to make informed decisions.
In 2020, former President Donald Trump’s campaign paid $3 million so Wisconsin would recount votes in two counties.
The result: Joe Biden’s lead grew by 87 votes.
Such a recount would not be possible in Pennsylvania. Here, a recount is automatically ordered if a statewide race falls within a certain margin. Voters can also initiate recounts in their own precincts.
With another highly contentious rematch between the two on the table for this November, an automatic recount cannot be ruled out. In recent years, supporters of losing candidates have also initiated precinct-level recounts that have little chance of changing a race’s outcome but can be used to disrupt the election process.
Here is what you need to know about how recounts work in Pennsylvania:
Why do recounts happen in Pennsylvania?
There are at least two ways a recount can be initiated in Pennsylvania.
Under Pennsylvania law, a recount is automatically triggered for a statewide race if the margin of victory lies within half a percent, and the state and counties pay for the effort. This last happened in the 2022 primary race for the Republican U.S. Senate nominee.
Three voters in a precinct can also request a recount based on their belief that fraud or error occurred. Such a recount only affects ballots cast in the voters’ precinct, which is the smallest voting district, usually just a few hundred voters and sometimes no larger than a city block.
The fee to request such a recount is $50, a price set in 1927 with an equivalent value of $900 today. Critics of Pennsylvania’s nearly 100-year-old election law say this provision makes the state vulnerable to weaponized precinct-level recounts that can delay certification, and argue it should be updated to reflect inflation. Such petitions delayed the certification of the 2022 election.
In 2016, supporters of Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein filed such requests. In court, Stein requested a full recount, arguing the contest had been marred by voting machines susceptible to hacking. She eventually dropped the recount effort after a judge ordered her to post a $1 million bond to cover the cost.
Adam Bonin, a Philadelphia-based attorney who regularly works with Democratic candidates, said he has used precinct-level recount requests before for local races for township supervisor or school board.
In 2023, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court upheld a lower court’s ruling that for a recount to be granted, the petitions either need to be filed in all of the precincts where a race takes place or present some kind of evidence of fraud or error. That ruling set a precedent for the whole state.
That barrier is low for races like township supervisor, which may have just a handful of precincts. But for statewide races that would mean filing petitions in all of the state’s more than 9,000 precincts.
How does Pennsylvania recount votes?
Counties must submit their unofficial results to the Pennsylvania Department of State by the first Tuesday following the election, which is Nov. 12 this year. If unofficial results show the margin lies within half a percent for a statewide race like those for president or U.S. Senate, the secretary of the commonwealth will order a recount by Nov. 14, according to a Department of State directive. A losing candidate has until Nov. 13 to request a recount not take place.
Counties will then recount all ballots either by hand or using different tabulation machines than the election was initially conducted with.
The recount must begin by the third Wednesday following the election, which this fall will be Nov. 20, and results must be submitted to the secretary by the following Wednesday, Nov. 27.
In the case of precinct-level recount petitions, requesters must file their petition with the local Court of Common Pleas. A judge will then determine if it meets the legal requirements to take place.
Can a recount change election results?
Recounts that change the outcome of a race are extremely rare, according to a study of statewide recounts by Fair Vote, a nonprofit focused on ranked-choice voting.
The group analyzed nearly 7,000 statewide races between 2000 and 2023, and found only 36 recounts in that time, only three of which resulted in a change of outcome.
“All three reversals occurred when the initial margin was less than 0.06% of all votes cast for the top two candidates,” according to the report.
According to the Pennsylvania Department of State, there have been seven statewide recounts since the 0.5% rule went into effect in 2004, and none of them changed the outcome of the race.
The most recent was in the 2022 Republican primary for U.S. Senate.
In that race, Mehmet Oz beat Dave McCormick by 902 votes — a margin of 0.07% — triggering the recount. McCormick conceded before the recount was complete, but the count ultimately shifted the margin by only 49 votes, in Oz’s favor.
Voter-initiated precinct-level recounts are even less likely to affect the outcome of a race than those ordered by the secretary.
In 2022, when supporters of Republican gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano requested recounts around the state, they did not substantially shift the margin in areas where the requests were granted.
Recounts in four Westmoreland County precincts resulted in only a three-vote difference from the original tally. Columbia County also recounted votes in some precincts, and results changed by only one or two votes, officials said at the time.
Could there be a recount this year?
Whether there is an automatic recount of a statewide race this year depends on the margins of victory this November. Current polling indicates the presidential race may be close in Pennsylvania.
If the margin is within half a percent, Secretary of the Commonwealth Al Schmidt must order a recount by Nov. 14, according to a calendar of this year’s election. Counties would need to submit the results of that recount to the secretary by Nov. 27.
It’s likely at least some voters will request precinct-level recounts, which could negatively affect the state’s certification process. This year, there is a hard deadline for Pennsylvania to provide its certified slate of presidential electors to Congress.
If precinct-level recount petitions delay certification as they did in 2022, the state could run up against that deadline and the courts may be forced to intervene.
Carter Walker is a reporter for Votebeat in partnership with Spotlight PA. Contact Carter at cwalker@votebeat.org.
HARRISBURG — A new task force under Pennsylvania’s Department of State has been working since February to hunt down AI chatbots that may be misleading users into believing the bots are licensed professionals.
Last week, the Shapiro administration filed what it said was the first lawsuit to stem from its AI investigations and the first enforcement action of its kind announced by a governor in the United States. Pennsylvania officials indicated there could be more to come.
The high-profile litigation comes as lawmakers across the country are pursuing, and in some cases enacting, legislation to address concerns brought on by the growing artificial intelligence industry — from banning the creation of sexual images of minors to requiring age verification for all users. A number of proposals from Gov. Josh Shapiro’s most recent budget address await action in the legislature.
The administration’s lawsuit alleges that software known as Character.AI, which creates fictional personalities for users to interact with, posed as a licensed doctor and offered medical advice to a state investigator, violating state law governing the practice of medicine. The suit was filed by Pennsylvania’s State Board of Medicine.
“We will continue to take action to protect the public from misleading or unlawful practices, whether they come from individuals or emerging technologies,” Secretary of the Commonwealth Al Schmidt said in a statement following the Character.AI lawsuit.
Shapiro made a similar promise in a statement, saying Pennsylvania will continue “holding bad actors accountable and setting clear guardrails so people can use new technology responsibly.”
The lawsuit says it stems from an investigation in which an employee with the Department of State created an account with the service and began a dialogue with “Emilie” — an AI-generated character the software described as a “Doctor of psychiatry.”
The character allegedly claimed it went to Imperial College London, had been practicing for seven years, and is licensed in Pennsylvania.
“In fact, I did a stint in Philadelphia for a while,” it told the investigator, according to the lawsuit.
The software also provided what the lawsuit said was a fake license number.
Those claims, the Shapiro administration argues, trick users into believing they are receiving medical advice from a licensed practitioner.
“Pennsylvanians deserve to know who — or what — they are interacting with online, especially when it comes to their health,” Shapiro said in a statement. “We will not allow companies to deploy AI tools that mislead people into believing they are receiving advice from a licensed medical professional.”
The lawsuit seeks for Character Technologies Inc. (developer of Character.AI) to “cease and desist from engaging in the unlawful practice of medicine and surgery.”
A Character.AI spokesperson said in a statement Tuesday that the company’s “highest priority is the safety and well-being of our users.” The spokesperson said that before the lawsuit, Character.AI already featured disclaimers warning that its AI characters are not real, and that they “should be treated as fiction.”
The spokesperson declined to comment on the lawsuit.
Pennsylvania’s lawsuit is not the first Character Technologies has faced. At least one case was brought by the parent of a minor who died by suicide. The company last year adopted a policy to ban minors from engaging “in open-ended chat with AI on our platform.”
The Federal Trade Commission last year also opened an inquiry into the company, along with six other chatbot providers, regarding how they “measure, test, and monitor potentially negative impacts of this technology on children and teens,” according to an agency news release.
It’s unclear what led Pennsylvania regulators to specifically investigate Character.AI. A Department of State spokesperson said the source of the complaint was “confidential.”
Shapiro told CNN, one of several national media outlets that covered the novel lawsuit, that his administration “challenged” the Department of State to conduct these types of investigations “to go and use this technology and see what kind of risks it posed” to Pennsylvanians.
Some details about the effort, which Shapiro first teased in his February budget pitch, are not yet public. Members of the task force are not disclosed online, and the Department of State did not answer questions from Spotlight PA asking for their names or how they were selected. A Department of State spokesperson said the task force consists of 12 of its employees.
As part of the AI fraud initiative, Pennsylvania is crowdsourcing tips on what software the state should investigate through its “Unlicensed Practice by a Chatbot” complaint system and hotline. According to the Department of State, it has received 18 complaints since it launched in February.
Pennsylvania’s moves against AI companies come as they rapidly grow their user bases nationwide, especially children and teenagers.
According to a survey last year from Common Sense Media, a California-based child safety nonprofit, more than half of teenagers access AI platforms at least a few times per month. One-third said they use or view the software as a tool to socialize, including for conversation or relationship practice, emotional support, role-playing, friendships, and romantic interactions.
At least five states have enacted laws restricting chatbots or requiring disclosures, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. California, for example, requires companies to disclose to children that they are interacting with AI. Pennsylvania is not one of them, but the state medical board alleges Character.AI’s actions violated existing law.
In his February budget address, Shapiro called on the General Assembly to take action on artificial intelligence. He urged lawmakers to prohibit chatbots from creating sexually explicit or violent content of minors, mandate that developers require age verification from users, and detect when children mention self-harm or violence. He also wants companies to frequently notify users they’re not interacting with a human.
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Lawmakers have not yet adopted those proposals.
House Communications & Technology Committee Chair Joe Ciresi (D., Montgomery) said the body’s staff is “constantly” meeting with Shapiro’s office to discuss how lawmakers should address growing concerns from the public regarding AI.
Ciresi’s counterpart in the GOP-controlled state Senate, Tracy Pennycuick (R., Montgomery), did not respond to questions about the Character.AI lawsuit, Pennsylvania’s AI Task Force, or her staff’s coordination with Shapiro.
Two years ago, Shapiro signed a bill banning ownership or distribution of AI-generated sexual images of children and non-consenting adults, which Pennycuick had sponsored. Last year, he signed another Pennycuick bill criminalizing the use of AI to create a nonconsensual “digital likeness” (including deepfakes) to “defraud or injure” another person.
Pennycuick’s now pushing for legislation that would require disclosures and restrictions for chatbots when they interact with children. In the legislative memo, Pennycuick pointed to past lawsuits filed against chatbot developers to argue “heartbreaking cases underscore the urgent need for safeguards to protect children from unsafe and unvetted AI systems.” Her proposal passed the state Senate in March but has not advanced through committee in the House.
Lawmakers have also been working to address another aspect of the AI industry, the growth of data centers and backlash to them in some communities. In Shapiro’s February budget address, he said, “no sector of our country’s economy is growing faster than data centers and artificial intelligence.” He announced incentives for data center developers to follow stricter environmental and transparency standards.
BEFORE YOU GO… If you learned something from this article, pay it forward and contribute to Spotlight PA at spotlightpa.org/donate. This story was funded in part thanks to the support of the Lancaster County Local Journalism Fund. Learn more about how we are supported here.
Hersheypark in Pennsylvaniacould be forced to close this summer amid a dispute between the site’s operators and union employees, according to a report.
The amusement park is scheduled to open seven days a week starting May 21 in a shift from its weekend-only operation before the summer, despite a looming vote among employees about whether to go on strike.
Over 200 union maintenance employees at Hersheypark, The Hotel Hershey and Giant Center rejected a contract offer from Hershey Entertainment & Resorts on May 7, according to Inside the Magic. The park’s operators described the proposal as their “last, best and final” offer.
Over a three-day period this week, employees will vote on whether to strike after rejecting the offer, which is the third from the park’s operators. A strike could close the park just in time for the start of the busy summer season when families head on vacation.
The list of employees considering going on strike includes ride mechanics, electricians, plumbers, welders, painters, machinists, utilities technicians, carpenters, garage auto mechanics and sign artists.
In mid-March, the union and Hershey Entertainment & Resorts agreed to extend a former contract for 60 days to allow for continued negotiations.
According to Inside the Magic, union workers are seeking fair wage increases, more affordable care plans and higher pay premiums for less-desirable shifts. The union has also said that it will reject new contract offers that lower professional standards, devalue skilled trades or open the door to lower wages in maintenance roles in the future.
The Independent has contacted Hershey Entertainment & Resorts for comment about the possible strike.
Hersheypark, located 15 miles east of Harrisburg, is the largest amusement park in Pennsylvania. Founded in 1906, the 121-acre site boasts more than 70 rides, a water park with 17 water attractions and an 11-acre North American Wildlife Park, according to Hersheypark’s website.
It’s named for and themed in conjunction with the popular candy company.
However, a different park in the Keystone State was named as the top amusement park in the U.S. on TripAdvisor’s Best of the Best list.
It was Knoebels Amusement Resort in Elysburg, 42 miles north-northeast of Harrisburg, that topped the list. In doing so, the little-known park was ranked higher than Dollywood, Disney World’s Magic Kingdom, Disney’s Hollywood Studios and Universal Islands of Adventure that also made the top 5.
“It’s got it all: roller coasters, kid-friendly rides (bumper cars, a haunted mansion), swimming, camping, a mining museum, and even a championship 18-hole golf course,” TripAdvisor wrote. “The accommodating staff, clean facilities, and fun attractions make for a memorable family-friendly visit.”
Knoebels is the U.S.’s largest free-admission park, although tickets for individual rides cost a fee.
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