Philadelphia and its suburbs expect to finish counting ballots Wednesday with thousands of mail ballots left to go

Just after midnight Wednesday, at least 200,000 mail ballots still needed to be counted across Philadelphia and the four collar counties as the presidential race remained too close to call with area officials saying the votes could take until Wednesday evening to be fully counted.

Even as these pivotal, populous counties remained undecided, former President Donald Trump was showing a statewide lead buoyed by rural and Rust Belt areas. Vice President Kamala Harris’ path to victory in the state depends on Philadelphia and its suburbs turning out in large number for her.

But while Harris is certain to win the city by a vast margin, Trump succeeded in his mission to shrink his loss there. With 95% of the vote counted in Philadelphia, Trump had exceeded his 2020 vote total in the city. As many as 20,000 mail ballots may still remain to be counted.

Meanwhile in Bucks County, the sole purple county in the region, Trump had a narrow lead at 12:40 a.m., with about three quarters of in-person votes counted but still more than 60,000 mail ballots left to count.

Under state law most counties in the state will continue counting ballots overnight, not stopping the counting process until all votes have been counted (aside from provisional ballots and others that are voted on by county election boards days later).

“They’re well aware of the level of scrutiny, they’re well aware of the importance of these elections for all offices on the ballot,” Secretary of State Al Schmidt said of all 67 counties in the Commonwealth Tuesday night. “They’ll be working late into the evening if not into the next day or two.”

In 2020, Philadelphia did not finish counting its mail ballots until the Saturday after the election. This year, county election officials say they expect to finish on Wednesday. Nick Custodio, deputy to Philadelphia Commissioner Lisa Deeley, said in a text message Tuesday night that the city was ahead of expectations and had processed 115,000 mail ballots by 8 p.m. despite predicting they’d process between 85,000 and 100,000 in that time period.

“We’re going to be here 24/7 until the job is done,” City Commissioner Seth Bluestein, a Republican, said in a news conference.

City election officials said during a news conference that there were a little over 202,000 mail ballots cast; around 37,000 mail ballots remained uncounted as of midnight Wednesday.

Meanwhile, there were 437,427 in-person votes counted in Philadelphia as of around midnight, and that number will continue to grow in the coming hours as poll workers continue to process ballots.

Bluestein said that in-person votes would continue to appear on the city’s results website in waves, and that it typically takes until 1 or 2 a.m. until those ballots are “near completion.”

The suburban counties surrounding Philadelphia also predicted Wednesday completion, as long as things continued running smoothly.

Delaware County election director Jim Allen said the county should finish by 6 a.m. Wednesday.

Montgomery County Commissioner Neil Makhija, a Democrat, predicted the county would finish its work by Wednesday morning. Additionally spokespeople for Chester and Bucks counties both said they expected to complete counting ballots on Wednesday.

That counting continues even if media outlets call the presidential race for either candidate.

In-person ballots began arriving at counting centers Tuesday night.

In Bucks County, car after car lined up outside the Bucks County Administration building at 10 p.m. Tuesday, delivering completed ballots from precincts throughout the county.

Inside the building, the memory sticks and tapes from voting machines, as well as provisional ballots, were retained. Meanwhile, the paper ballots were separated and sealed into black bags that were loaded into vans and driven to an undisclosed warehouse under a quarter moon.

All the while, employees continued counting mail ballots.

Philadelphia, Bucks, Delaware, Montgomery, and Chester counties each announced an early round of mail votes Tuesday evening but will continue counting and reporting mail ballots as they report in-person votes throughout the night. As of 11:30 p.m. several in-person precincts were still not reporting and it was unclear exactly how many mail ballots still needed to be counted.

Most counting of in-person ballots should be completed Tuesday night but processing mail ballots is an arduous process involving several steps that takes counties far longer. Even after in-person counting is completed, counties will continue counting mail ballots.

It is likely those votes will move totals towards Democrats, including Vice President Kamala Harris, as they are counted because Democrats requested and returned more mail ballots than Republicans. This is not a sign of malfeasance, it’s just a function of how ballots are counted and the differences in voting behavior by party.

Additionally, votes from these counties are likely to skew blue because Philadelphia, Chester, Delaware, and Montgomery counties are Democratic strongholds.

Even after these ballots are counted counties will still need to count provisional ballots and vote on whether to count mail ballots that have been set aside for issues with date, signature or ID verification. Military ballots also have until Nov. 12 to be returned.

If the race is close, these are the ballots that could result in extensive litigation as each party looks to maximize their own vote count. Counties then have until Nov. 25 to certify their results.