PENNSYLVANIA Court race yields flurry of recounts

The margin of victory, or defeat, is 300 votes or fewer.
PHILADELPHIA (AP) -- Nearly two months after Pennsylvanians cast their votes on Election Day, the race for one slot on the state Superior Court remains undecided.
With more than 2.2 million votes, the margin separating Judge John Driscoll of Westmoreland County Common Pleas Court, a Democrat, and Republican attorney Susan Gantman of Montgomery County puts Gantman ahead by between 30 and 300 votes -- depending on what party is counting.
Since shortly after the Nov. 4 election, attorneys and party volunteers have been scouring the state for voting errors that could add even one or two additional votes to their candidate.
The race, which some lawyers in the case have called the closest election in Pennsylvania since the Civil War, has pointed out some peculiarities of Pennsylvania's election process -- for one, that state law doesn't have any provisions for an automatic statewide recount.
In some states, votes are recounted when the margin is 1 percent or smaller. But in Pennsylvania, candidates must seek recounts by precinct -- of which there are more than 9,000 statewide.
Court cases
With the Jan. 5 swearing-in deadline approaching, both parties are battling in court.
The Republicans' lawyers have asked the state Supreme Court to take over the flurry of legal actions and halt the recounts, calling the situation in court documents "a disorganized, unregulated free-for-all."
Democrats called the allegations "totally misleading and irresponsible."
The Superior Court seat for which Gantman -- who has always been ahead in the vote count -- and Judge Driscoll are competing was one of three at stake in the election. Northampton County Judge Jack A. Panella and Philadelphia Municipal Judge Seamus P. McCaffery, both Democrats, won the other two seats.
Gantman and Judge Driscoll have sought recounts in more than a dozen precincts, all in western Pennsylvania.