It was a short night for election workers across Pennsylvania. Counties throughout the state, including Allegheny and Butler Counties, have resumed counting mail in and absentee ballots.
Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf is vowing to count every vote cast, even in the face of possible legal challenges from the White House. "Make no mistake, our Democracy is being tested in this election," he said.
President Donald Trump, who already declared victory, said he plans to take his case to the U.S. Supreme Court because he believes a "major fraud on our nation" has been committed.
Pennsylvania Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar says attorneys are ready to defend the vote count in face of expected challenges from the White House and GOP. "What we've been doing all along with all litigation that's been flying this year is that we have a mix of in-house and outside council."
By late morning Boockvar told reporters "We are approaching 50 percent of the mail ballots counted."
Allegheny County resumed counting around 10am with about half the mail ballots tabulated.
Butler County resumed amid issues with their ballot scanner that started on Election Day. Butler county Commission Chair Leslie Oshe told KDKA Radio that "certainly this mail-in process has been less than stellar."
County Executive Rich Fitzgerald told KDKA Radio that he believes Joe Biden will win Pennsylvania's electoral college votes. “The reason is because, mostly, they’ve counted the republican votes. Today, they are going to count the democratic votes," he said.
Wolf said definitive results may not be known today. "The delay that we're seeing is a sign that the system is working. This is a new system."
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Biden is also confident he'll win the election but that it will take time to count the votes stating, "We knew because of the unprecedented early vote, the mail-in vote that it was going to take awhile . We’re going to have to be patient until the hard work of tallying votes is finished."
Counting throughout the state may likely not be finished for days. In September the State Supreme Court ruled that Pennsylvania could collect ballots for up to three days after Election Day as long as they are post marked by November 3.
In October, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld that ruling in a split decision.
Boockvar told reporters the slowness of counting paper mail-in ballots was expected.