Pennsylvania is playing a crucial and decisive role in President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden electoral race. Both candidates have been battling it out in the battleground state, hoping to claim its 20 electoral votes on the way to the 270 needed to win.
The Keystone State is a big prize for Trump, because even if he wins Florida and holds battlegrounds he won in the South and Southwest, he would still be short of 270 electoral votes without it.
Biden, on the other hand still has other options to victory without winning Pennsylvania.
As of Wednesday morning, ballots were still being counted across the Keystone State.
Pennsylvania’s three largest counties, Allegheny, Montgomery, and Philadelphia, which sent out the most absentee ballots to voters, will continue counting their mail-in ballots Wednesday.
6abc reported that Philadelphia City Commissioners announced Wednesday morning that ballots will continue to be counted after experiencing a delay with counting in-person votes.
The decisive role of Pennsylvania will include the circumstance of counting millions of mail-in ballots caused by the coronavirus pandemic.
Republican Philadelphia City Commissioner Al Schmidt tweeted Wednesday morning that, “Philadelphia will not stop counting all legitimate votes cast by eligible voters. And we will report and report and report until the last vote is counted.”
Two hours later, he said the city’s results page was updated to “include more than 65,000 mail-in votes cast by Philadelphia voters.”
Election officials are describing it as an army of people dealing with the decisive role of the state and working overnight to get all votes counted.
You can read: Tom Wolf: “Pennsylvania will not be intimidated”
Commissioners said there was a delay getting in-person voting machines back to regional centers to finish counting votes after polls closed.
Gov. Tom Wolf highlighted on Twitter County election officials’ hard work during the counting process. He also thanked the participation of staff and volunteers. “County election officials are working hard to count your vote and many worked late into the night. Thank you to the staff and volunteers who worked so hard to prepare for the historic number of ballots cast in this year’s election.”
Yesterday was #ElectionDay. County election officials are working hard to count your vote — and many worked late into the night.
Thank you to the staff and volunteers who worked so hard to prepare for the historic number of ballots cast in this year’s election. pic.twitter.com/IHzYZ0M2pO
— Governor Josh Shapiro (@GovernorShapiro) November 4, 2020
The governor assured that despite the lengthy process, every vote will be counted. “Though we’re seeing results return more slowly than in recent years, Every vote will be counted. We may not know the results today, but it’s important that we have accurate results,” Wolf posted.
Remaining votes
Democratic City Commissioner Lisa Deeley said they must get those remaining votes into the counting machines before adding additional mail-in ballots because of how the system is configured.
They hope to get back on track while managing the record number of more than 400,000 mail-in ballots returned in Philadelphia.
“We’ve never had to count this large number of mail-in ballots and have an in-person election. We thought we had timed it right, but truthfully we’ve never done it before in this large number,” Deeley said.
Officials in Pennsylvania had to wait until polls open on Election Day to begin counting absentee mail-in ballots because Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf and Republican leaders of the state legislature could not agree on a plan to allow ballot processing before Election Day.
President Trump spoke after polls closed and pledged to go to the U.S. Supreme Court to stop any further counting of ballots across the country.
In an update from Philadelphia, City Commissioners said the counting process is getting 50% mail-in ballots counted
Meanwhile, all eyes are on the Keystone State waiting to see the development of its decisive role.
Noticias Newswire
