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      Who won and who lost in Tuesday’s primary elections.

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      Voters in seven states weighed in on key contests in Tuesday’s primaries. Here is a rundown of some of the most notable wins and losses:CaliforniaSan Francisco recalled its progressive district attorney, Chesa Boudin. Mr. Boudin had enacted sweeping overhauls since being elected two years ago and faced criticism that those changes led to increases in crime.Rick Caruso, the billionaire developer, and Representative Karen Bass will square off in a runoff contest to be the mayor of Los Angeles.Gov. Gavin Newsom, who last year easily beat back a Republican-led recall effort, will face State Senator Brian Dahle, a Republican.Attorney General Rob Bonta, a Democrat, will advance to the November runoff after his first place finish in the open primary for that office. A second candidate has not been determined yet.Representative Michelle Steel, a freshman Republican, will face Jay Chen, a Democrat and Navy reservist.Scott Baugh, a former leader of the California Assembly, fended off a crowded Republican field on Tuesday to earn the right to challenge Representative Katie Porter.Representative Mike Garcia, a Republican, will face Christy Smith, a former Democratic state legislator, for the third time.Kevin Kiley, a Republican state legislator backed by former President Donald J. Trump, will compete against the Democrat, Kermit Jones, who is a Navy veteran and physician, in the Third Congressional District.New JerseyRobert J. Menendez Jr., the son of Senator Bob Menendez, won his House Democratic primary in the Eighth Congressional District.Tom Kean Jr., a former lawmaker and the son of a two-term New Jersey governor, won the Republican nomination in the state’s Seventh Congressional District. He now faces Representative Tom Malinowski, the Democratic incumbent.IowaSenator Charles E. Grassley, 88, easily won his primary race and will run against Mike Franken, a retired Navy admiral who won the Democratic primary for Senate.State Senator Zach Nunn won the Republican nomination for Iowa’s Third Congressional District. Mr. Nunn will face Representative Cindy Axne, the Democratic incumbent.New MexicoMark Ronchetti, a former Albuquerque television meteorologist, was the Republican’s pick to challenge Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, a Democrat.Gabe Vasquez, a Las Cruces city councilor, won the Democratic nomination for New Mexico’s Second Congressional District. Mr. Vasquez will face Representative Yvette Herrell, the Republican incumbent.Raúl Torrez, the Bernalillo County district attorney, defeated Brian Colón, the state auditor, in the Democratic primary for attorney general.South DakotaVoters defeated an effort to increase the level of support needed to pass most voter-initiated referendums to 60 percent from a majority.Gov. Kristi Noem won her Republican primary, and so did Senator John Thune.MississippiRepresentative Steven Palazzo, a Republican facing an ethics investigation, was forced into a runoff election in his party’s primary, according to The Associated Press. It has not yet been announced who he will face later this month. More

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      Iowa: How to Vote, Where to Vote and What’s on the Ballot

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      Senator Charles E. Grassley, at 88 years old, is standing for re-election, as is Representative Cindy Axne. Here’s what to know about voting in today’s primary elections in Iowa:How to voteThe deadline to request an absentee ballot was about two weeks ago (here’s the form). You can track the status of your absentee ballot on this site.Iowa permits people to register to vote on Election Day. Just go to your polling place with proof of ID and proof of residence. If you do not have the documents election officials require, “a registered voter from your precinct may attest for you,” according to the website for Iowa’s secretary of state. Look up whether you are already registered here.Where to voteYou can look up your polling location here. If you voted by mail, your ballot will be counted as long as it is received by officials before 8 p.m. local time on Election Day (which is also when polls close), or hand-delivered to your county auditor by that deadline.What’s on the ballotYou’ll be asked to pick candidates for U.S. Senate, as well as local offices. (Gov. Kim Reynolds, a Republican, and Diedre DeJear, the Democratic nominee for governor, are not facing primary challenges.) Enter your address on this website to see what else is on your ballot today. More

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      What Trump Doesn’t Understand About Alaska

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      SITKA, Alaska — As the only Republican senator fighting for her seat less than two years after voting to convict Donald Trump, Lisa Murkowski could be one of the crowning casualties in his war to rid the party of dissenters. Mr. Trump has insisted that voters here in Alaska won’t forgive Ms. Murkowski for her recent transgressions, and that Kelly Tshibaka, the Republican challenger whom he endorsed, “stands for Alaska values.”What I imagine he meant was that Ms. Tshibaka has the courage to confront bullies, the willingness to put state before political party, and a general resilience that comes from years of living in “Alyeska,” the Aleut word for “the great land.” The only problem with his argument is that, over the past 20 years, it’s Ms. Murkowski who has demonstrated all three. And it might be just enough to save her political career.As the state with the highest percentage of voters refusing to declare a party affiliation (more than half of voters here identify as independent), Alaska has a rich tradition of rewarding candidates who stand up to powerful figures like Mr. Trump. In the early 20th century, James Wickersham, Alaska’s congressional delegate, battled to give the territory the right to govern itself, insisting on its difference from the “Outside.” As recently as the 1990s, Gov. Wally Hickel was saying that Alaska deserved to be called its own “unique country.” And Alaska’s longtime congressman, Don Young, was so willing to stand up to the powers that be that he once held a 10-inch knife to John Boehner’s neck. (The two later became friends, and Mr. Boehner served as Mr. Young’s best man.)The daughter of an Alaska governor, Ms. Murkowski understands this tradition better than most. She infuriated her Republican colleagues in 2017 with her vote against repealing the Affordable Care Act and rejected Mr. Trump’s nominees, voting against both Betsy DeVos as secretary of education and Brett Kavanaugh for Supreme Court justice. In that sense, she represents ideals all but lost in American political life: She may not wield a knife on the House floor, but her independent thinking and ability to consider each issue individually are relics of a time when party loyalty mattered less than your relationship with your constituents.That approach has hurt her standing in the Republican Party. After she voted to convict Mr. Trump, he declared that she represented “her state badly and her country even worse.” He even threatened to come to Alaska to campaign against her — now that would be a reality show I’d watch. While such saber-rattling would have been enough to send most moderate Republicans scurrying into their holes, Ms. Murkowski held fast.To understand her resilience and resolve, you need only to look at her wrist. There, you’ll find a bracelet engraved with her last name, along with the words “Fill it in. Write it in.” This was a gift from her husband, who modeled it on the silicone wristbands her campaign issued in 2010 after she lost her primary to a Republican challenger blessed by the national party. Ms. Murkowski won the general election as a write-in candidate thanks to a motley crew of centrists, Democrats and Alaska’s Native community. (Ms. Murkowski’s vote against the health care repeal was largely seen in the state as a “thank you” card to the villages that allowed her to pull this off.)Kelly Tshibaka, meanwhile, returned to the state of her birth just three years ago — about as long as we keep salmon in the freezer before putting it into our Dungeness traps. In an attempt to shake the carpetbagger label, her campaign released a video showing her at work on a set-net operation in Cook Inlet. The move backfired when the Alaska Department of Fish and Game fined her $270 for not having a crew license. (I was also fined by that agency, for working on a sea cucumber dive boat without a license. I did not issue a news release afterward blaming my political opponents for the fine.)If the tribes, sportfishermen, A.T.V.ers, commercial fishermen and conservationists in Alaska agree on one thing, it’s the responsibility of the state to control its fisheries and maintain a “sustainable yield” through strict regulations, a duty written into the Alaska Constitution. The footage of Ms. Tshibaka illegally handling a salmon showed someone desperate for authenticity — but also a candidate either ignorant of, or just willing to break, Alaska’s fish laws.Ms. Tshibaka has also been taken to task for her unsteady relationship to the truth. In 1975, her parents moved to the state for the pipeline boom and spent time in a tent at Russian Jack Springs Park for their honeymoon. A photo from this period has become Exhibit A of the “homeless to Harvard” story arc Ms. Tshibaka has promoted to describe her Alaska upbringing. As the veteran Alaska newspaper columnist Dermot Cole recently pointed out, her parents weren’t homeless. They were camping.After finishing high school, Ms. Tshibaka left to attend college in Texas, then Harvard Law, before spending 17 years in Washington. She wrote an article praising an organization that advocated gay conversion therapy (she later apologized to anyone she might have offended), described the “Twilight” books and movies as “evil,” and warned against the “addictive” qualities of witchcraft — positions not exactly in line with Alaska voters’ distaste for people telling them how to live their lives.Both she and Ms. Murkowski have presented themselves as lifelong Alaskans running against the political “establishment” in the rest of the country. But it’s Ms. Tshibaka who salutes the flag at Mar-a-Lago, telling high school students in Nome that Mr. Trump’s policies were “super great for our state.” In February, Mr. Trump hosted a fund-raiser for Ms. Tshibaka at his Florida club, though he then turned around and charged her $14,477 for use of the facilities. She moved back to Alaska only in 2019, when she was hired by the Republican governor, with the state paying $81,000 in moving expenses to bring her and her family north.Preening for a national audience at CPAC and on conservative talk shows, as Ms. Tshibaka has been doing, could hurt her chances in the August primary. The Democrat who went up against the Republican incumbent senator Dan Sullivan in 2020, Dr. Al Gross, discovered this to his grief. Hosting Zoom calls from his Airstream, courting donors across the country, he raised $19 million, the highest take of any Alaska Senate candidate ever. But come election time, the national exposure seemed to hinder more than help; Dr. Gross lost to Mr. Sullivan by 13 percentage points.Ms. Murkowski plays a different game.If history is any guide, soon she’ll arrive at the small airport here in Sitka dressed in fleece and denim, ready to wolf down wilted iceberg lettuce at the Chamber of Commerce luncheon, pumping hands with the “cut, kill, dig, drill” flannel-wearing good old boys at Orion Sporting Goods, dancing at Native celebrations.While I don’t always agree with her, when I watch her work a room, it’s difficult to take seriously Mr. Trump’s prediction that Alaska voters won’t forgive her. The more relevant question seems to be whether Ms. Murkowski will forgive him. “I will tell you, if the Republican Party has become nothing more than the party of Trump, I sincerely question whether this is the party for me,” she said shortly after the Capitol riot.The idea that Mr. Trump could fly up to Alaska and take her down, as he has so many others, could actually win Ms. Murkowski votes. One thing he might discover in the attempt: He doesn’t have the first idea of the values of this state he has visited only during refueling stops on Air Force One — the closeness to the land, to blood, to the sound ice shards make on a pane of glass at 40 below. All this might play as curiosity or nostalgia in the Lower 48. But it’s real up here.We don’t need more greatness in Alaska — just someone who understands what we already have, and is courageous enough to defend it against those who do not.Brendan Jones (@BrendanIJones), a writer and commercial fisherman, is the author, most recently, of the novel “Whispering Alaska.”The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      A Pro-Herschel Walker Group Gave Out Gas Vouchers, Angering Democrats

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      ATLANTA — A gas-money giveaway in support of Herschel Walker, the Republican candidate for Senate in Georgia, drew the ire of Democrats and voting rights groups in the state, who said the move was both hypocritical and possibly illegal.The event, organized by the pro-Walker PAC 34N22, aimed to highlight rising gas prices and tie the issue to Senator Raphael Warnock, a Democrat who will run for re-election against Mr. Walker in November. The group handed out $25 fuel vouchers and Walker campaign flyers to motorists in line at a gas station in downtown Atlanta on Saturday as volunteers held signs saying, “Warnock isn’t working.”Several Democrats and leaders of voting rights groups criticized the event, pointing to a provision of the state’s voting law that bans volunteers from handing out water or snacks to voters while they are waiting in line. Handing out gas vouchers on behalf of a political candidate to motorists who are in line at the pump, they argued, should be considered just as unlawful.In an interview with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, State Representative Bee Nguyen, a Democrat who is running for Secretary of State in Georgia, cited a 2020 incident in which she said a state investigator had demanded that volunteers at a polling place in Metro Atlanta remove all snacks and water.“Giving away gas vouchers and Herschel Walker flyers at the same time isn’t legal,” she said. “Are they going to do something about it?”A memo from Mr. Walker’s lawyers shared after the event denied any wrongdoing, saying the gas vouchers were distributed “without condition” and that no voters who received the vouchers were required to vote, register to vote or support any political candidate.“Warnock’s campaign is upset about 34N22’s community outreach program, not because of any earnest legal concerns, but because they don’t want the public to know Warnock has contributed to record gas prices and the pain Georgians are feeling at the pump,” the memo reads.Mr. Warnock’s campaign did not comment on the event.Mr. Walker’s campaign denied any involvement with Saturday’s voucher giveaway after a video surfaced showing Angela Stanton-King, a Walker campaign volunteer, crediting Mr. Walker for the gas voucher event. Campaign laws bar candidates from directly influencing or cooperating with PACs that support them.“Herschel Walker decided, ‘You know what, we’re going to do this free gas giveaway for the community. I want them to know that I care,’” said Ms. Stanton-King, a former U.S. House candidate who was pardoned in 2020 by former President Donald J. Trump for her role in a car-theft ring, in the video.The Saturday event — and ensuing backlash — provide the latest look at what is likely to be a bitter and expensive fight for the Senate seat.Two days before the event, Mr. Warnock released a television advertisement attacking Mr. Walker for his embrace of an aerosol product he claimed could remove Covid-19 from one’s body upon entry to a building. The last few seconds of the ad, entitled “Snake Oil,” flash the words: “Is Herschel Walker really ready to represent Georgia?” as footage plays of Mr. Walker explaining the treatment in an interview. More

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      Fetterman’s Heart Issues Add Wild Card to Key Pennsylvania Senate Race

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      Part of John Fetterman’s appeal as the Democratic Senate nominee has stemmed from his brash sense of vitality. It’s not clear if his recent stroke and absence from the trail will affect that.Just three weeks ago, a varied cross-section of Pennsylvania Democrats put its hopes on the broad shoulders of John Fetterman, confident that the commonwealth’s burly lieutenant governor could vanquish anything or anyone that a fractured Republican Party could throw at him.But as the general election season begins, the 6-foot-8 Mr. Fetterman suddenly seems a good deal more vulnerable, equipped now with a pacemaker and a doctor’s note attesting that he can campaign and serve as Pennsylvania’s next senator, though the candidate himself admitted he “almost died.”And what seemed like a protracted, divisive fight in the G.O.P. over the party’s nominee to take on Mr. Fetterman ended suddenly on Friday when Dr. Mehmet Oz accepted the concession of David McCormick, his narrowly beaten opponent. A three-way slugfest between a celebrity, Dr. Oz, an out-of-state hedge fund manager, Mr. McCormick, and a far-right Fox News pundit, Kathy Barnette, slipped quickly away into memory.What was left for the fight over the Senate seat deemed most within reach for a Democratic takeover was a heart patient, Mr. Fetterman, battling a heart surgeon, Dr. Oz, and a distinct sense of unease, at least for now, among some Democrats.“It’s going to be a brutal campaign,” said G. Terry Madonna, a longtime pollster and political writer in Pennsylvania. “If I had to put it in a couple of words, it’s ‘no holds barred.’”Mr. Fetterman’s health struggles could be particularly resonant because so much of his appeal has stemmed from his image of vitality. Though he hails from his party’s left flank, he has garnered the affections of more moderate, working-class voters with his bald head, goateed face, Carhartt sweatshirts, baggy basketball shorts and tireless campaigning in every nook of the state.Sarah Longwell, a Republican strategist who has conducted focus groups with Pennsylvania voters, quoted Democrats saying, “You know, he’s the physical embodiment of Pennsylvania.”Now that common-man appeal must include the contrition of an ailing patient who ignored his doctor’s advice for years and an overt appeal to the sympathies of the voters.“Like so many others, and so many men in particular, I avoided going to the doctor, even though I knew I didn’t feel well,” Mr. Fetterman said in a statement on Friday that broke weeks of silence since he had left the campaign trail. “As a result, I almost died. I want to encourage others to not make the same mistake.”The statement read like a confession. He suffered a stroke last month, just days before Pennsylvania’s primary, and seemed to let his campaign systematically downplay his condition. All that ended on Friday when he admitted that he suffered from a heart condition called cardiomyopathy and had left other heart issues untreated for years.His physician, Ramesh R. Chandra, released a scolding note saying that when Mr. Fetterman was diagnosed with atrial fibrillation and a decreased heart pump in 2017, he was prescribed medicine, lifestyle changes and follow-up appointments, but that he “did not go to any doctor for five years and did not continue taking his medications.”Dr. Mehmet Oz spoke during his election night watch party in Newtown, Pa., last month.Bryan Anselm for The New York TimesThe drama might enhance Mr. Fetterman’s appeal by further humanizing him, but that is not assured. Shawn W. Rosenberg, a professor of political and psychological science at the University of California, Irvine, who has been studying politics and political style since the late 1980s, said Mr. Fetterman’s imagery before the health scare had broken new ground. Where once clean-scrubbed youth sold well, Pennsylvanians have lapped up their lieutenant governor’s Everyman look.“Do we want a political leader who is a version of the guy next door or someone who stands above us in some respects?” Professor Rosenberg asked. “Most of the literature suggests we want the latter, and Fetterman is an interesting challenge to that.”He added: “That works to his advantage in Pennsylvania. Part of the Republican play since Trump is anti-elitism. Against Oz, he’s clearly not the elitist.”But his health struggles also might clash with his superman image as it bolsters his opponent, a heart surgeon who has spent his extensive television career touting medical interventions, many legitimate, some questionable.In a fight between a Paul Bunyan-like common man and a celebrity doctor, the doctor might emerge as the responsible candidate. And Dr. Oz will know how to sell it, said Samantha Majic, a political scientist at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, who studies style and celebrity in politics.“Celebrity in the modern sense is somebody who is known, highly produced, managed and in the media, but they are also commercialized, they are using their celebrity to sell,” Professor Majic said. She added: “As campaigns become more expensive, you’ve got to have celebrity capital to parlay into financial capital. You have to stand out.”Among Democrats and many independents in Pennsylvania, Mr. Fetterman is popular. A poll from Franklin & Marshall College just before the primary — and before his stroke — found that 67 percent of Democratic voters viewed him favorably, well above the 46 percent who felt warmly toward his primary opponent, Representative Conor Lamb.Berwood A. Yost, the director of the Center for Opinion Research at Franklin & Marshall, said that given the Democratic nominee’s 52 years of age, his health problems “may make Fetterman even more relatable.”You get to your 50s as a working-class person, and you’ve got some scars to show for it, right?” he said. “It’s a further contrast between the two candidates. I mean, the contrast couldn’t be any more stark.”And a comeback from a health setback is not uncommon. Senator Bernie Sanders, the Vermont independent whose progressive politics are similar to Mr. Fetterman’s, suffered a heart attack in late 2019, with the presidential primary season looming, and hardly skipped a beat.But Mr. Fetterman will remain off the campaign trail for some time.“Doctors have told me I need to continue to rest, eat healthy, exercise and focus on my recovery, and that’s exactly what I’m doing,” he said in his statement. He added: “It’s frustrating — all the more so because this is my own fault — but bear with me, I need a little more time. I’m not quite back to 100 percent yet, but I’m getting closer every day.”Rebecca Katz, a strategist for Mr. Fetterman, strongly denied that the campaign had been keeping his condition hidden. Campaign officials announced he needed a pacemaker as soon as they learned it, and the campaign released Friday’s statement as soon as the doctor gave his permission, she said. Democratic officials had grown so worried that there was chatter about recruiting a new nominee, gossip that she pushed back on hard.“All we have is the truth, and that’s what we chose to share,” she said.If Mr. Fetterman is limping into the general election, so is Dr. Oz. Ms. Longwell said the Democrat’s overwhelming popularity with his base was the mirror opposite of the reaction to Dr. Oz, who elicits strong suspicion from some conservative Pennsylvania voters, despite the endorsement of former President Donald J. Trump. And the Fetterman campaign has already started attacking the Republican as a New Jersey interloper who is coming to Pennsylvania via Hollywood.Given the overall political environment, Mr. Yost said the race is a true tossup, but he too wondered how Dr. Oz’s lack of connection with his new state will work in the commonwealth.“There’s a sense of place here among long-term residents,” he said, “and Oz really isn’t from here. I wonder how that plays out.”In a video statement, Dr. Oz vowed to start afresh after a difficult primary fight.“I’m going to reach to every corner of this commonwealth,” he said. “I know we’ve got to heal. We’ve got to pull people together again. I want to make sure that happens again.” More

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      North Carolina TV stations pull an attack ad against Cheri Beasley, a Democrat running for Senate.

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      Television stations in North Carolina made the unusual decision on Friday to take down an attack ad against Cheri Beasley, a Democratic Senate candidate, after complaints that the ad falsely accused Ms. Beasley of freeing a man convicted on charges of possessing lewd images of children when she served as chief justice of the North Carolina Supreme Court.The ad, made by the Republican Senate campaign arm, highlighted the case of “a child porn offender,” and it accused Ms. Beasley of having “voted to set him free.” A female narrator spoke ominously over images of a young girl and jail bars sliding open.On Friday, five TV stations in Raleigh and Charlotte said they would pull the ad or that they had “paused” it pending an examination of its claims, according to emails from the stations to Courtney Weisman, a lawyer working for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, which were reviewed by The New York Times.On Thursday, two Charlotte stations took the ad off the air. A representative for the stations, WXAN and WSCO, explained in an email to Ms. Weisman that the ad’s claim about Ms. Beasley “is in error, as it appears the defendant was not set free” by the State Supreme Court decision.Chris Hartline, a spokesman for the National Republican Senatorial Committee, which made the ad, defended the claims made against Ms. Beasley and said the Charlotte stations that acted on Thursday had not asked to see any documentation before making the decision.“Every word of the ad is true,” Mr. Hartline said in a statement. “This bizarre statement from a TV station that had yet to receive or even ask for our substantiation for the claim will be noted by our media buyers as they make future decisions about ad buys.”Dory MacMillan, a spokeswoman for Ms. Beasley, said, “Washington Republicans have been caught lying.”“Voters know Cheri worked with law enforcement to hold violent offenders accountable, and she will continue to keep our communities safe as North Carolina’s next U.S. Senator,” Ms. MacMillan said in a statement. Ms. Beasley is running against Representative Ted Budd, the Republican nominee, in a race for an open seat that is important in determining control of the Senate.The ad in question, titled “Failed Our Children,” ties Ms. Beasley to three cases involving child sex offenders. The attack against Ms. Beasley, who is Black, is reminiscent of attacks by Senate Republicans aimed at Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson during her Supreme Court confirmation hearings. Senators, led by Josh Hawley of Kansas, accused her of being lenient in sentencing in child pornography cases. A review by PolitiFact concluded that Judge Jackson’s sentences were consistent with those of other judges.The case that led to removal of the North Carolina ad involved a man named James Howard Terrell Jr., who was convicted in 2016 of possessing lewd images of minors on a computer thumb drive.An appeals court ruled that a detective had conducted an illegal search of the thumb drive, in violation of Mr. Terrell’s Fourth Amendment rights, and it sent the case back down to the trial court.In 2019, the State Supreme Court, with Ms. Beasley in the majority, upheld that ruling. As of May 2020, Mr. Terrell was still in prison, according to court records, and it was on that basis that Ms. Weisman, the Democratic lawyer, demanded the ad be taken down. “To claim that her vote somehow resulted in a defendant being ‘set … free’ is false,” she wrote.A lawyer for the Republican campaign arm, in a letter to TV stations about the ad, argued that North Carolina court records for Mr. Terrell state that his convictions were “vacated” after the Supreme Court heard the case. The lawyer, Ryan G. Dollar, accused the Democratic lawyer of attempting to “gaslight” TV station managers. Court records indicate that Mr. Terrell is no longer incarcerated. More

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      Pennsylvania Court Orders Undated Ballots to Be Counted, Siding With McCormick For Now

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      David McCormick, who was trailing Dr. Mehmet Oz by fewer than 1,000 votes, had sued to have ballots without handwritten dates on their return envelopes counted.Update: David McCormick conceded the exceedingly close race for the Republican nomination for Senate in Pennsylvania on Friday to Dr. Mehmet Oz. Read the news story.A Pennsylvania court ordered election officials on Thursday to count undated mail-in ballots for now in a nationally watched Republican Senate primary, granting a temporary injunction to David McCormick as he trailed Dr. Mehmet Oz amid a statewide recount.Fewer than 1,000 votes separate Mr. McCormick, a former hedge fund executive, from Dr. Oz, the celebrity physician backed by former President Donald J. Trump, in a race that could ultimately determine control of the divided Senate.The Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania concluded that a May 23 lawsuit by Mr. McCormick had raised sufficient claims that a state law requiring voters to hand-write the date on return envelopes for mail-in ballots could lead to their disenfranchisement.Republicans have fought to enforce the rule, siding with Dr. Oz in the lawsuit.In the 42-page opinion, Renée Cohn Jubelirer, the court’s president judge, directed county election boards to report two sets of tallies to the acting secretary of the commonwealth, one that includes the undated ballots and one that does not. That way, when a final decision is made on whether to accept the ballots, the judge wrote, the vote count will be readily available.In the opinion, Judge Cohn Jubelirer said there was no question that the contested ballots had been returned by the May 17 deadline.“The court notes that no party has asserted, or even hinted, that the issue before the court involves allegations of fraud,” she wrote. “The parties have agreed that this election was free and fair.”A campaign spokeswoman for Mr. McCormick lauded the court order in a statement on Friday.“We are pleased the court agrees on ensuring valid Republican votes that were signed and returned on time, as shown by their time-stamp, are counted so the party can get behind a strong nominee in the fall,” the campaign spokeswoman, Jess Szymanski, said.Casey Contres, the campaign manager for Dr. Oz, declined to comment about the decision on Friday.Judge Cohn Jubelirer wrote that the court’s guidance should be uniform, noting that some counties had decided to accept the undated ballots and others had not.“Without court action, there exists the very real possibility that voters within this commonwealth will not be treated equally depending on the county in which they vote,” she wrote. “The court begins with the overarching principle that the Election Code should be liberally construed so as not to deprive electors of their right to elect a candidate of their choice.”The treatment of undated mail-in ballots is at the heart of another legal dispute in Pennsylvania. That one is before the U.S. Supreme Court, which on Tuesday paused the counting of those ballots in a judicial race in Lehigh County, Pa., a case that could reverberate in the G.O.P. Senate primary.Understand the Battle Over U.S. Voting RightsCard 1 of 6Why are voting rights an issue now? More