Southwestern Pa. counties resume counting votes

Allegheny County has resumed its efforts to count mail-in ballots after a pause early Wednesday morning, according to county spokeswoman Amie Downs.

Voters sent in 348,485 mail-in and absentee ballots. As of 3 a.m., 173,068 had been processed and electronically scanned. Another approximately 29,000 ballots had been set aside for manual review.

Scanning the remaining 146,537 ballots will began around 10 a.m. Wednesday morning, according to Downs.

Allegheny County received 413,386 applications for mail-in, absentee and military ballots before Election Day. Of those, 288,902 were from Democratic voters and 81,325 were from Republicans. Third-party and independent voters made up the remainder.

All ballots are kept in a warehouse guarded by Allegheny County Police and 24-hour video surveillance.

Westmoreland County resumed the counting of mail-in ballots 9 a.m. Wednesday after pausing at midnight.

As of Wednesday morning, more than 27,500 mail-in ballots have been counted as have nearly 143,000 ballots cast in person on Tuesday at Westmoreland County’s 307 polling locations.

Mail in ballots are being counted by precinct and in alphabetical order.

Election results posted on the county’s website reflect both the in person and mail in votes already counted as was last updated at 2:06 am.

According to the county website there are still about 120 precincts where mail in ballots have yet to be counted.

Westmoreland County received nearly 60,000 ballots by mail so far.

Westmoreland county officials have issued no updates as of 10:30 am. on Wednesday.

Armstrong County had counted all in-person votes from its 62 precincts Tuesday night and processed some of its mail-in ballots, according to county elections officials. The processed mail-in ballots were scanned Wednesday morning.

The county has received more than 8,500 mail-in ballots. Workers will process them from 7 a.m. until 11 p.m. until they have all been counted.

Washington County reported that all votes — including mail-in and absentee ballots — had been counted. A total of 115,978 Washington County residents cast their ballot for president, with 61% voting for Donald Trump, 37.9% voting for Joe Biden, and 1.1% for libertarian candidate Jo Jorgensen.

Beaver County did not count any mail-in ballots Tuesday, planning to start the process Wednesday, according to Director of Elections Dorene Mandity.

Counties have nearly a week to finish counting, and could continue receiving ballots through Friday.

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has ruled that ballots postmarked by Election Day and received by 5 p.m. Friday are valid and should be counted.

Counties have until Nov. 10 to post their unofficial returns, and until Nov. 23 to certify election results.

The presidential inauguration is scheduled for Jan. 20.

Counties have until Nov. 10