{"id":47099,"date":"2020-11-04T08:49:00","date_gmt":"2020-11-04T13:49:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/?p=47099"},"modified":"2020-11-04T08:49:08","modified_gmt":"2020-11-04T13:49:08","slug":"wolf-take-a-deep-breath-the-votes-will-be-counted-chesco-officials-gather-to-back-complete-vote-count","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/?p=47099","title":{"rendered":"Wolf: Take a deep breath, the votes will be counted; Chesco officials gather to back complete vote count"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Mike McGann<\/strong>, Editor, The Times<\/em> @mikemcgannpa<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Despite false claims of voter fraud by President Donald Trump, ballot counting will continue in Pennsylvania and Chester County \u2014 and may not be fully complete statewide until Friday.<\/p>\n

Although Trump falsely declared victory late Tuesday, it appears that Joe Biden is increasingly likely to win a fairly close but definitive victory for the White House, as much of the uncounted votes in states such as Pennsylvania are mail-in ballots, which lean heavily in favor of Democrats. At this writing, Biden appears poised to win Michigan, Wisconsin, Nevada and Pennsylvania, with both Georgia and North Carolina hanging in the balance and waiting on counts of mail-in ballots.<\/p>\n

Results for the statewide Row Offices races, as well as local legislative races are unclear right now pending final vote counts.<\/p>\n

Pennsylvania\u2019s delay in vote counting was provoked by Republicans in the state legislature who refused to allow pre-canvassing of the vote \u2014 opening the envelopes, confirming the signature and readying the ballots for counting on election day. Most counties began their mail-in count Tuesday, with a handful of counties waiting until Wednesday.<\/p>\n

Gov. Tom Wolf suggested in a video last night that the state\u2019s residents should take a deep breath \u2014 all of the votes will be counted and a winner will emerge.<\/p>\n

\u201cAcross the state, dedicated county workers are ready to tirelessly make sure everyone\u2019s vote counts,\u201d Wolf said. \u201cBut counting that tremendous number of ballots will take more time than we are used to. We may not know the results today, but I encourage all of us to take a deep breath and be patient. What is most important is that we have accurate results, even if that takes a little longer.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Republicans increasingly are arguing that the legally-cast mail-in votes should not be counted \u2014 ballots that tend to favor Democrats, who chose to vote early. Two GOP state Senate Leaders, Senate Majority Leader Jake Corman and Senate President Pro Tempore demanded that Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar resign because she had given conflicting advice to county election officials.<\/p>\n

Wolf was having none of it, though.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a partisan attack on Pennsylvania\u2019s elections and our votes,\u201d Wolf said Tuesday night. \u201cOur election officials are working diligently to make sure every vote is counted and everyone\u2019s voice is heard. Attacks like this are an attempt to undermine confidence in the results of the election, and we should all denounce them for the undemocratic actions they are. I support our Secretary of State and all of our state and local election officials who are working hard to deliver timely, accurate results and ensure that everyone\u2019s vote is counted and protected.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tuesday night, local officials gathered at the Government Services Building in Westtown to defend the voting process. State Rep. Carolyn Comitta (D-156) \u2014 also a candidate for the 9th state Senatorial District\u00a0 <\/span>\u2014 State Rep. Dan Williams (D-74), West Chester Mayor Dianne Herrin (a candidate for the State House in the 156th District), West Chester NAACP President Reverend Kyle Boyer and Conservation Voters of PA member Edna Patterson all expressed support for getting every voted counted, no matter the delay.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve not been through a year like this or an Election like this,\u201d Comitta said. \u201cIt\u2019s different than what we\u2019re used to, but it\u2019s still Democracy in action. The people of Pennsylvania are still deciding. And our elections are still safe, secure, and reliable. Our democracy is stronger when every citizen votes and every vote is counted.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Mike McGann, Editor, The Times @mikemcgannpa Despite false claims of voter fraud by President Donald Trump, ballot counting will continue in Pennsylvania and Chester County \u2014 and may not be fully complete statewide until Friday. Although Trump falsely declared victory late Tuesday, it appears that Joe Biden is increasingly likely to win a fairly […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":47101,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[29,7833,12429,7426,2155,786,13431],"class_list":["post-47099","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-chester-county","tag-donald-trump","tag-election-2020","tag-featured","tag-joe-biden","tag-pennsylvania","tag-vote-counting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47099","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=47099"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47099\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":47100,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47099\/revisions\/47100"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/47101"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=47099"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=47099"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=47099"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}