a long way gone essay prompts

A Long Way Gone

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A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Solider

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Introduction

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Reading Context

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Reading Questions & Paired Texts

After Reading

Discussion/Analysis Prompt

Essay Questions

Exam Questions

Exam Answer Key

Use these essay questions as writing and critical thinking exercises for all levels of writers, and to build their literary analysis skills by requiring textual references throughout the essay.

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Scaffolded Essay Questions

Student Prompt: Write a short (1-3 paragraph) response using one of the below bulleted outlines. Cite details from the text over the course of your response that serve as examples and support.

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1. Behavioral norms change in war. What was socially unacceptable suddenly becomes the norm.

• How did standards of behavior change as seen in A Long Way Gone?  ( topic sentence )
• Provide three examples from the text that support your claim, whether they be from the rebels’ behavior or from Ishmael’s.
• Finally, in your concluding sentence or sentences, connect this back to the theme of The Traumatic After-Effects of Violence.

2. Ishmael mentions his dreams and his nightmares throughout the story.

• What is the effect of Ishmael’s decision to recount these dreams and nightmares? ( topic sentence )
• Use three examples of dreams and/or nightmares from the text to support your argument.
• Finally, in your concluding sentence or sentences, tie this argument about dreams and nightmares back to the theme of The Traumatic After-Effects of Violence or The Uplifting Aspects of Nature and Spiritual Traditions.

3. Ishmael and his brother love rap music.

• How does rap music perhaps unexpectedly recur throughout the memoir? ( topic sentence )
• Provide three examples of times in which rap cassette tapes are mentioned and explain the significance/symbolism of these moments.
• Finally, in your concluding sentence, connect this back to Ishmael’s development as a character.

Full Essay Assignments

Student Prompt: Write a structured and well-developed essay. Include a thesis statement, at least three main points supported by text details, and a conclusion.

1. By the end of the memoir, Ishmael wishes to champion the ability to rehabilitate child soldiers. In your essay, discuss Ishmael’s development as a character that brought him to this point and the ways in which he has had to grow and change because of his circumstances. Provide at least three textual examples of his growth and connect these back to either the theme of The Capacity for Altruism in Human Nature or that of The Traumatic After-Effects of Violence.  

2. Why does Ishmael often choose to travel with large groups of boys, even before he becomes a soldier himself? Would it have been more beneficial to stay in smaller groups so that villages did not think he and his friends were rebels? Write an essay in which you make an argument for one side of this debate or the other. Be sure to think about how to persuade your readers to take your side and what points your opponent might make.

3. Is this an optimistic story? Why or why not? There are moments of utter depravity in depictions of the violence inflicted upon and by Ishmael and his compatriots. However, there are also moments of great kindness and humanity. Make an argument about what effect reading this book may have on readers, and provide three examples from the text to support your argument. Ultimately, connect your ideas back to the theme of The Capacity for Altruism in Human Nature.

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Novelguide rooms, novelguide: search by author, novelguide: search by title, book navigation.

• A Long Way Gone: Novel Summary: Chapter 1 - Chapter 5
• A Long Way Gone: Novel Summary: Chapter 6 - Chapter 10
• A Long Way Gone: Novel Summary: Chapter 11 - Chapter 15
• A Long Way Gone: Novel Summary: Chapter 16 - Chapter 21
• A Long Way Gone: Character Profiles
• A Long Way Gone: Metaphor Analysis
• A Long Way Gone: Theme Analysis
• A Long Way Gone: Top Ten Quotes
• A Long Way Gone: Biography: Ishmael Beah

A Long Way Gone: Essay Q&A

Essay Q&A

1. What does Ishmael say the war is about?

Ishmael says nothing about the causes of the war, or what each side was fighting for, or of the overall political and social conditions in Sierra Leone that caused the war. This was a deliberate strategy on the part of Beah, the author. He wanted to present the war through the eyes of a child. As a boy of twelve, when the war first affected him, he had no interest in politics. He had no reason to be interested—his main interest, understandably for a boy of his age, was in singing and dancing to rap music and hanging out with his friends. When the war comes to him, it is for him a battle for personal survival, not a political cause. He is also fueled by feelings of revenge—instilled into him by his army officers—against the rebels because they killed his family. Once again, these are personal feelings not political beliefs. For the reader, then, transported to a land he or she knows nothing about (for the American reader, that is), the war seems not only almost unimaginably brutal but also meaningless. It consists of one side mindlessly killing the other, and vice versa, in skirmishes in small villages. Ishmael does report Lieutenant Jabati’s speeches to his men, in which he says they are defending their country (“We kill them [the rebels] for the good and betterment of this country” [p. 123]), but such appeals to patriotism are not what inspire Ishmael. Ishmael’s ignorance of politics is again stressed when he is in Freetown during his rehabilitation and sees a convoy of cars and military vans. He is told that the new president, Tejan  Kabbah, who had won an election eight months earlier is passing by. “I had never heard of this man,” Ishmael writes pointedly. This confirms the tenor of the book as a whole: Ishmael is a boy caught up in a war he knows nothing about for a cause he does not care about.

2. Why was the war fought and what course did it take?

During the 1980s Sierra Leone was a one-party state governed by the All-People’s Congress (APC) party.  However, this period was marked by extensive government corruption and abuse of power. Although Sierra Leone is rich in natural resources it became one of the poorest countries in the world because of mismanagement. The civil war in neighboring Liberia helped to create conditions for war in Sierra Leone because a Liberian war leader reportedly sponsored the rebel group called the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) as a way of destabilizing Sierra Leone, which at the time was a base for a United Nations peacekeeping force. 

The war broke out in 1991 in villages in eastern Sierra Leone that were near the Liberian border. The aim of the RUF was to seize and control the diamond sector, and in 1991 it took control of the diamond mines in the Kono district.  (It is the mining area around Ishmael’s home town of Mogbwemo that the rebels seize in 1993.)  In 1992 a military coup took place that established the National Provisional Ruling Council, replacing the civilian government. However, the new military government was powerless to prevent the RUF from controlling much of the country. It was the years immediately after this, from 1993 to January 1996, that Ishmael was a soldier. The war continued after Ishmael was rescued from it, as he himself found out when he went to stay with his uncle in Freetown after his rehabilitation. There had been an election in April 1996, and a civilian government had taken power, but in May 1997 there was another military coup, and the new military government known as the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC) invited the RUF to participate in it. The following year, when Beah was safely in the United States,  the military government was ousted and the civilian government restored. But this did not stop the violence as the AFRC and its RUF allies fought to regain power. Fighting returned to Freetown in 1999, before a peace accord was signed in July 1999.  But this did not last, and the war dragged on, finally ending in  January 2002, with the civilian government in charge. According to the CIA ’s World Factbook , the civil war resulted in tens of thousands of deaths and the displacement of more than two million people—about one-third of the population of Sierra Leone.

3. What is the situation in Sierra Leone today?

According to the CIA’s World Factbook , Sierra Leone is gradually returning to a fully democratic government following the ravages of the civil war. There was a general election in 2007 that led to one civilian government being peacefully replaced by another.

The nation has also tried to come to terms with the recent past. In 2002 the government set up a Special Court to try those responsible for war crimes during the civil war. It also set up a Truth and Reconciliation Commission. The Special Court indicted many of those held responsible for the atrocities. Some died before they could be tried, but in June 2007, the Special Court found three men guilty of war crimes, including not only murder, terrorism, and enslavement but also the act of conscripting or enlisting children under fifteen into the armed forces.

As refugees from the war are slowly returning from neighboring countries, the Sierra Leone government is trying to create jobs and end political corruption. Revenues from diamond mining have increased significantly since the end of the war. Diamonds account for about half of Sierra Leone’s exports. However, Sierra Leone, with a population estimated in 2009 as 5,132,138, remains an extremely poor country with wide disparities in how wealth is distributed. According to the World Factbook, “The fate of the economy depends upon the maintenance of domestic peace and the continued receipt of substantial aid from abroad.”

4. How widespread is the use of child soldiers?

It would be comforting to think that the forced conscription of children into the armed forces during the war in Sierra Leone was an aberration, not something that can happen again in the modern world. However, that is  not the case. Even in the twenty-first century, the use of child soldiers is common in armed conflicts around the world. According to Human Rights watch, an international nongovernmental organization, as of 2007, there were an estimated 200,000 to 300,000 children fighting in various wars. According to a Global Report published in 2008 by the Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers, at the end of 2007 children were used as soldiers in seventeen armed conflicts around the globe. The coalition noted that this was down from twenty-seven conflicts in 2004, but the downturn was more because the conflicts had ended than because child soldiers were no longer being recruited. The Global Report identified the following countries where children were recruited for paramilitaries, militias, civilian defense forces or armed groups linked to or supported by governments: Chad, Colombia, Democratic Republic of the Congo, India, Iran, Ivory Coast, Libya, Myanmar, Peru, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Sudan, and Uganda. The most flagrant offender, according to the Global Report, is Myanmar, where the government uses thousands of children in its battle against rebel groups. In Uganda, tens of thousands of children have been forced into joining armies over a period of nearly twenty-five years. In some of these countries, including Uganda, girls as well as boys have been forced to become soldiers.

There have in recent years been concerted international efforts to end the use of child soldiers. Sierra Leone, which has tried and convicted men responsible for recruiting child soldiers, has become a leader in this issue. The use of child soldiers has now been prohibited by international law. The Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the involvement of children in armed conflict has been ratified by 120 states. The UN Security Council has adopted resolutions calling for the establishment of a monitoring mechanism on children and armed conflict. However, these and other prohibitions are no guarantee that when new conflicts break out, child soldiers will not be recruited.

5. Is Beah’s story factually accurate?

A Long Way Gone achieved popular and critical success, but questions have been raised by some regarding the factual accuracy of a number of events Beah recounts in the book. Beah writes that his village was attacked in January 1993 and after that he became a refugee from the war. Critics claim that there are school records showing that Beah was in school later than this date, and that the village was attacked in 1995, not 1993. This would mean that Beah would actually have been recruited at the age of fifteen, not thirteen as he writes in the book. This would have meant that he was only a child soldier for a few months, rather than over two years. Some critics point to the structure of the book to confirm this. They point out that most of the book deals with Beah’s wanderings as a refugee and the months he spent in rehabilitation. Only two chapters (13 and 14) cover his actual experiences as a soldier (although he does present more incidents from his military service at various points in flashbacks).  Questions have also been raised about the account Beah gives of the fight between the former boy soldiers at the rehabilitation home, in which several boys were killed. There are no independent reports of such a fight ever taking place. Some believe that Beah used others’ experiences as his own and that he embellished his tale. They point to his interest in creative writing at Oberlin College and the fact that his adoptive mother was a storyteller. The suggestion is that Beah was encouraged by those around him to tell a more vivid story. Others have more charitably suggested that Beah simply got his dates mixed up, and his memory may have been unreliable because on his own admission he was high on drugs most of the time he was in military service. Beah has vehemently denied that he invented anything, however. In an article published in Publishers Weekly in 2008, Beah wrote, “Sad to say, my story is all true.” 

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Home — Essay Samples — Literature — A Long Way Gone — A Long Way Gone Theme Analysis

A Long Way Gone Theme Analysis

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About this sample

Words: 572 |

Updated: 6 November, 2024

Words: 572 | Page: 1 | 3 min read

Table of contents

Introduction to the feminist lens, understanding "the necklace", the story of an hour: a fresh perspective, "hills like white elephants": analyzing hemingway, conclusion: reflecting on women's roles.

• Maupassant, G., & Brackett, V. (2010). “The Necklace.” Masterplots.
• Chopin, K., & Evans, R.C. (2014). “The Story of an Hour.” Introduction to Literary Context: American Short Fiction.
• Holladay, H. (2004). “Hills Like White Elephants.” Masterplots II: Short Story Series.

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A LONG WAY GONE: STUDY GUIDE SUMMARY - ISHMAEL BEAH

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A Long Way Gone

Ishmael beah.

Children in War

A Long Way Gone is the autobiography of a boy soldier, Ishmael Beah, who as a boy was afflicted by and then coerced to participate in the Sierra Leone Civil War as a boy soldier. Narratives of war often involve a loss of innocence, where dreams of glory are replaced by a realization of the horror of war, but a narrative of a child soldier is something else. It is the story of not only…

The Horror of War

Beah’s memoir is an act of witness. He relates gruesome violence so that the reader might understand what his life was like, what the war was like. The hope is also that he might draw enough attention to what happened in Sierra Leone so other atrocities might be stopped before they begin.

When the memoir begins, war is just a rumor to Beah. He doesn’t believe it will ever reach him. Refugees who pass through…

Companionship, Hope, and the Self

In the face of so much horror, Beah’s will to live is tested. His hope that each new set of companions will be the one he gets to keep—the ones who will not leave him or be torn from him—allows him to keep moving forward, even as the evidence mounts against that hope with each loss.

Beah is separated from his family at the beginning of the memoir, fleeing the advancing rebels with a group…

Guilt and Responsibility

War is fertile ground for feelings of regret and guilt. Although as a manipulated child soldier, Beah can never be said to be at fault, his actions as a child soldier are often at odds with the person he imagined himself to be. Beah experiences himself firing the gun or slitting the throat—because he did fire the gun and slit the throat—and therefore cannot help but feel he is responsible for the pain he causes.

As a boy before the war, nature is essential to Beah’s understanding of the world. Its beauty seems to him not just good in itself, but a reminder of the essential goodness of the world. Beah often looks to the moon as a model of good behavior. As his grandmother says, “no one grumbles when the moon shines. Everyone becomes happy and appreciates the moon in their own special way.” In the narrative present, the…

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Essay Samples on A Long Way Gone

The powers of revenge and forgiveness.

The novel A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah, is a memoir about himself, sharing his harrowing experience as a child growing up and his struggle for survival in Sierra Leone. The unthinkable happened in his village, Mattru Jong. The civil war occurred out of...

• A Long Way Gone

Book Review "A Long Way Gone" by Ishmael Beah

 The novel A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah, is a memoir about himself, sharing his harrowing experience as a child growing up and his struggle for survival in Sierra Leone. The unthinkable happened in his village, Mattru Jong. The civil war occurred out of...

The Horrifying Reality of War in Ishmael Beah's Novel A Long Way Gone

“A Long Way Gone” written by author Ishmael Beah is a book about a young boy named Ishmael who went through a lot of early teenage trauma because of a war that was happening in his home country. The author wrote this book about his...

Sierra Leone's Robbed Childhood in A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah

The war deprives kids of childhood, distorts humanity, and brings despair and fear. People living in a peaceful world can never feel the same about the reality and cruelty of wars. This book tells the reader about the actual miserable situation of Sierra Leone during...

Uncovering The True Fiction Behind Ishmael Beah’s Recount of His Life Story

What settles the difference between nonfiction and fiction? The specifics. In a nonfiction novel, the author is recounting on purely true events. However, in a fictional text, the author has a wide range of possibilities and can be very subjective. The specifics can be used...

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The Life Lessons in "A Long Way Gone" by Ishmael Beah

“The book is raw, run through with melancholy, but so honest and longing that hundred and thousands have read it, and it’s made Beah…arguably the most read African writer in contemporary literature,” said Dave Eggers (Vanity Fair). A Long Way Gone is a story of...

Best topics on A Long Way Gone

1. The Powers Of Revenge And Forgiveness

2. Book Review “A Long Way Gone” by Ishmael Beah

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A Long Way Gone

by Ishmael Beah

A long way gone quotes and analysis.

These days I live in three worlds: my dreams, and the experiences of my new life, which trigger memories from the past. Ishmael Beah, p. 20

After a month of living in the relative safety of New York City, Ishmael Beah is still haunted by nightmares of his time fighting the war in Sierra Leone. His new life is unfamiliar to him and cannot protect him from returning to the past terrors of his young life. Worse still, his vivid dreams constantly draw him back to the terror of his life in Sierra Leone as a victim of the RUF violence. He is a young man divided against himself, as his country had been divided against itself - in both cases, due to the rebels' violent actions.

Things changed rapidly in a matter of seconds and no one had any control over anything. We had yet to learn these things and implement survival tactics, which was what it came down to. Ishmael Beah, p. 29

Beah acknowledges that the rebels' violence has force himself and others like him to resort to "survival tactics." His world has been turned upside-down, and in the shock of his first few months' experience with the civil war, he is not yet ready to change with the mercurial situations he finds himself in. When civilization breaks down, the world is thrown into chaos and former priorities are set aside in favor of mere survival. Beah here foreshadows that he will eventually learn that life-saving lesson, but hints that it is a deplorable situation for a young man be forced to turn all his thought to survival from day to day.

When I was very little, my father used to say, "If you are alive, there is hope for a better day and something good to happen. If there is nothing good left in the destiny of a person, he or she will die." Ishmael Beah, pg. 54

Beah's recollection of his father's words helps him to keep pushing forward, even though he is lost in the forest without a purpose in life. He is able to hold onto this precept even as he battles depression brought on by his isolation from other human beings. It is this lesson that keeps Beah moving onward even when horrible things happen to him and those around him; he believes that his destiny will still have some good in it so long as he is alive. Conversely, he knows that his life will end when he has run out of good fortune, so he has no fear of pushing forward toward whatever life has in store for him.

My eyes widened, a smile forming on my face. Even in the middle of the madness there remained that true and natural beauty, and it took my mind away from my current situation as I marveled at this sight. Ishmael Beah, p. 59

Even amid the horrors of civil war, Beah can see a grander perspective when confronted by natural beauty. He and his companions had never seen the ocean, so the sight, sound, and smell of it overwhelms them with joy. For the first time since any of them fled the rebels, they joke with one another, wrestle in fun, and play soccer on the beach. The boys have a moment of respite from their terrifying ordeal, and in that moment remind the reader (and each other) that they are still children at heart, forced to grow up too quickly because of circumstances beyond their control.

One of the unsettling things about my journey, mentally, physically, and emotionally, was that I wasn't sure when or where it was going to end. I didn't know what I was going to do with my life. I felt that I was starting over and over again. Ishmael Beah, p. 69

Beah's memoir sheds light on the multifaceted damage done by civil war and terrorism. As a victim of the violence, a young man who has lost his family and way of life and is in turn considered dangerous by most of the civilians he encounters, Beah suffers more than simiple physical pain. The anguish of losing his family and friends is compounded by the uncertainty each day brings. Although they attempt to find a safe haven, the boys know from bitter experience that no such place seems to exist in Sierra Leone. Each new village brings either hopelessness - in the form of desolation and isolation - or hostility on the part of the frightened inhabitants. Beah feels that there is no place for him to call "home" any longer, and fears that such a place may never exist in his future. He must start "over and over again" with each new day, keep moving so as to avoid both the rebels and their terrified victims. For Beah, as for any other refugee from warfare, there can be no rest. Whatever dreams he had in childhood of his adult life have not only been put on hold, they have been obliterated. His only goal now is to live through each day.

That morning we thanked the men who had helped bury Saidu. "You will always know where he is laid," one of the men said. I nodded in agreement, but I know that the chances of coming back to the village were slim, as we had no control over our future. We know only how to survive. Ishmael Beah, p. 87

Despite their acceptance by villagers and refugees, Beah and his companions suffer the loss of one of their own - the coma-stricken Saidu. Their place in the village is confirmed by the sorrowful ceremony of Saidu's funeral, a rite of passage heralding both belonging and loss. Despite their kindness in the wake of tragedy, Beah knows that he and his friends cannot find peace among the villagers. They have changed too drastically on the inside; they have grown up too quickly into men who recognize that survival is more important than familial connections. Unfortunately for the boys, their losses to date have hardened them into people who exist only to keep existing, with no higher purpose in mind.

Whenever I looked at rebels during raids, I got angrier, because they looked like the rebels who played cards in the ruins of the village where I had lost my family. So when the lieutenant gave orders, I shot as many as I could, but I didn't feel any better. Ishmael Beah, p. 122

Beah sums up his coping mechanism and motivation for becoming an effective killer in the Sierra Leone civil war. He channels his pain at the loss of his family into a raging hatred of the rebels who killed his loved ones, and lets the fire of this anger burn through his gunfire. Even as he uses this method to dehumanize his enemies, he realizes that killing an infinite number of rebels will not restore his soul to peace, nor will it reclaim his lost childhood. He follows orders, and follows them effectively, but his humanity is the price he must pay for being a good soldier.

I had my gun now, and as the corporal always said, "This gun is your source of power in these times. It will protect you and provide you all you need, if you know how to use it well." Ishmael Beah, p. 124

Corporal Gadafi's mentality is demonstrated by this statement, which the corporal transmits to the soldiers under his command. In the violent times of the Sierra Leone civil war, weapons are power; Beah learns to focus his sense of security and strength in his G3 rifle for most of his military career. Later in the memoir, when his weapon is taken from him, he panics and feels at a loss without the tool of violence which has come to define him.

This emphasis on the power of the object is central to the soldiers' ability to cope with the chaos of the civil war. In a world where lives may be lost seemingly at random, and death may come from almost any direction, the only power any soldier has to control the world around him resides in his gun. Like so many other soldiers, Beah must accept this reality in order to survive and remain relatively sane in the violent nightmare landscape of constant ambushes, raids, and sudden deaths.

Sometimes we were asked to leave for war in the middle of a movie. We would come back hours later after killing many people and continue the movie as if we had just returned from intermission. we were always either at the front lines, watching a war movie, or doing drugs. There was no time to be alone or to think. Ishmael Beah, p. 124

Another coping mechanism used by the soldiers was desensitization. By believing that armed conflict was as much a part of daily life as mealtime or movies, the men are able to shut off their feelings about the death and suffering they see (and create). The movies serve to desensitize them further; they watch violent films such as Rambo and Commando which glorify and stylize violence to the point that the viewers can create a disconnect between their actions and the real world.

Beah's comment that "There was no time to be alone or think" hints at what he later terms "brainwashing" on the part of the military structure. The soldiers are given no chance to reflect on their actions, lest they begin to comprehend the full scope of their deeds and their surroundings. By keeping the men busy, entertained, or drugged, the officers are able to keep their men steady for the job they must do: kill rebels. The cost is the soldiers' humanity.

When I was a child, my grandmother told me that the sky speaks to those who look and listen to it. She said, "In the sky there are always answers and explanations for everything: every pain, every suffering, joy, and confusion." That night I wanted the sky to talk to me. Ishmael Beah, p. 166

Beah makes this statement in Chapter 17, immediately after repeating his fascination with the appearance of the moon in Chapter 1. The sky again represents the natural world - the world greater than that of civil strife and human violence. For the past several years leading up to this moment, Beah has been divorced from the redemptive power of nature. He has been trained to fight, to kill, and to survive. Now, having broken through his own barriers against trusting nurse Esther and the UNICEF worker Leslie, Beah recovers his sense of family history. He invokes the memory of his grandmother and her lesson about man's communion with the natural world. For the first time since he was inducted into the army, Beah remembers this connection and seeks to make himself whole again.

A Long Way Gone Questions and Answers

The Question and Answer section for A Long Way Gone is a great resource to ask questions, find answers, and discuss the novel.

Ishmael Beah takes a matter-of-fact tone in his memoir. Although he is recounting great horrors experienced by his twelve-year-old self, he does not dwell on lurid details or seem to exaggerate for dramatic effect. He states plainly what he sees...

GradeSaver has a complete study guide for this unit, which includes a short-summary of the novel.

How did Kanei become a refugee

He escaped with both mother and father, lost two sisters and brothers in chaos. They arrived at the river and got on a boat but the rebels shot at the boat so he swam.

Study Guide for A Long Way Gone

A Long Way Gone study guide contains a biography of Ishmael Beah, literature essays, quiz questions, major themes, characters, and a full summary and analysis.

• About A Long Way Gone
• A Long Way Gone Summary
• Character List

Essays for A Long Way Gone

A Long Way Gone essays are academic essays for citation. These papers were written primarily by students and provide critical analysis of A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier by Ishmael Beah.

• Thematic Analysis of A Long Way Gone and Sold
• The Inhumanity of War and the Loss of Innocence in 'A Long Way Gone'
• The Impact of Revenge in War as Displayed in “A Long Way Gone”

Lesson Plan for A Long Way Gone

• About the Author
• Study Objectives
• Common Core Standards
• Introduction to A Long Way Gone
• Relationship to Other Books
• Bringing in Technology
• Notes to the Teacher
• Related Links
• A Long Way Gone Bibliography

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Pa. Dept. of State says outcome still unclear in Casey-McCormick Senate race as deadline looms

Dave McCormick walks through the U.S. Capitol building as reporters ask him questions on Tuesday, Nov. 12, 2024. (Jennifer Shutt/States Newsroom)

The still-pending result of Pennsylvania’s U.S. Senate election between incumbent Democrat Bob Casey and GOP challenger Dave McCormick remained uncertain Tuesday, but the Pennsylvania Department of State (DOS) expects a clearer picture to emerge after the 5 p.m. deadline for counties to submit their unofficial vote tallies.

However, the DOS cautioned in a statement, that picture won’t be a definitive one.

The Associated Press  called the race for McCormick on Thursday.  But the Pennsylvania Secretary of State noted not long after the AP call that there were “at least 100,000 ballots remaining to be adjudicated, including provisional, military, overseas, and Election Day votes.”

Casey has not conceded, with his campaign pointing to the number of outstanding ballots to be counted. He reiterated in a statement Tuesday morning that across Pennsylvania, “close to 7 million people cast their votes in a free and fair election. Our county election officials will finish counting those votes, just like they do in every election. The American democratic process was born in Pennsylvania and that process will play out.

I want to thank the election workers across our Commonwealth who have been working diligently over the weekend. Their work will ensure Pennsylvanians’ voices are heard.”

McCormick held a victory party in Pittsburgh on Friday, and on Tuesday, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s office said McCormick and Senator-elect Ruben Gallego of Arizona  had been invited  to freshman Senator orientation.

But the DOS explained in its statement that the result of the race was still to be determined. “As Pennsylvania counties continue the arduous process of canvassing provisional ballots, the results on PA’s election returns website after 5 p.m. today will not reflect the final vote count,” Tuesday’s DOS statement reads. “While the counties strive to provide us with their unofficial results, many counties still have challenged ballots that must be considered at a board of elections hearing”

If the vote margin between Casey and McCormick is at or below 0.5%, a recount would be triggered under state law.

“Once the Secretary receives unofficial returns from all counties, he will determine whether an automatic statewide recount has been triggered in the U.S. Senate race,” the DOS said. “If he determines a recount is triggered, the Department will announce that via press release. That recount must be completed by noon on Nov. 26,” which is two days before Thanksgiving.

Pennsylvania Capital-Star is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Pennsylvania Capital-Star maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Kim Lyons for questions: [email protected] . Follow Pennsylvania Capital-Star on Facebook and X .

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