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Several state Republican Attorneys General plan to support the Pennsylvania State GOP’s appeal to the United States Supreme Court against extending the deadline for receiving mail-in ballots until three days after the day of the poll, a case in which the Trump campaign also intervened.
Ballots in Keystone state are mostly coming from Democrats, and the GOP’s call seeks to disqualify some that have yet to be included in the tally. If those ballots are disqualified, separate categories of ballots cast in Pennsylvania that have not yet been counted could potentially bring the race close enough to trigger an automatic recount.
On Monday afternoon, Mr. Biden led Mr. Trump in Pennsylvania by 45,246 votes, a margin of 0.7%. CBS News projected on Saturday that he would win the state, winning the presidency with his 20 electoral votes. Biden was then screened as the winner of Nevada, increasing his tally to 279, where he currently stands.
The president’s campaign appears to be relying on more ballots to bring the margin down to or below a 0.5% difference, which would trigger an automatic statewide recount.
Pennsylvania Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar said on Thursday that in the three days after the state primaries about 60,000 ballots arrived, but she did not expect to see as many in the election general. The Pennsylvania State Department has not released an updated figure, but the ballots counted so far have arrived at a 2.7-to-1 ratio in favor of Democrats over Republicans.
The ballots on which the Trump campaign depends come from three categories: provisional ballots, ballots set aside because they were flagged for various matters, and ballots for military and foreign citizens.
There are over 100,000 provisional ballots, but each must be reviewed to determine if it will count. Some will be rejected because they were from voters who also voted by mail but were concerned they would not arrive on time, so they showed up to vote in person on election day. The Pennsylvania State Department did not respond to questions about whether any of those ballots had yet been included in the count.
There is also a batch of ballots with various errors or issues, and there are no numbers available statewide on this. These ballots are currently reserved for election officials to judge individually.
And overseas and military ballots will be accepted until Tuesday, with no total yet available.
Together, these three categories could skew in favor of Mr. Trump and could in theory narrow Mr. Biden’s lead enough that the ballots received during the three-day extension matter, although this does not seem likely. Even if a recount were triggered, tens of thousands of ballots are expected to emerge to clear the margin between the president and Mr. Biden.
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