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In Alleghany County, PA, election staff reportedly took the 'day off' with approximately 35,000 ballots remaining, another frustrating development for the Biden and Trump campaigns who are eagerly awaiting the final results in the critical swing state. According to Allegheny County Executive Rich Fitzgerald, nearly 15,000 provisional in-person ballots will not be counted until "later tomorrow or early next week." This also includes 29,000 uncounted absentee ballots which also are set to be counted in the aforementioned time frame.

Federal court stops the vote count

Fitzgerald argued that the sudden stop in ballot counting has nothing to do with election staff but it is the fault of federal court rulings and state laws. “At this point, there are approximately 35,000 mail ballots that are to be looked at. In that 35,000 ballots to be looked at, 29,000 ballots have been ordered by a federal court to not be handled or processed until five o’clock on Friday,” Fitzgerald explained. To make matters worse, 6,800 additional ballots have other issues Fitzgerald said. "...they got damaged in the mail, they got damaged or cut during the opening, the cutting of the machine process. Maybe there wasn’t secrecy on below, dated issues, etc, etc. Those are going to be looked at starting tomorrow at nine o’clock, again by state order. We have to swear in a return board tomorrow morning.” Pennsylvania's Supreme Court has ruled that ballots can continue to be counted through Friday, which Republicans are currently looking to overturn over concerns of voter fraud. In addition to Republicans attacking the state's ineptitude, Democrats have also started firing volleys at state officials. For Joe Biden, who is trailing behind Trump in PA, it is understandable why the Democrats are dying to know the final results in the battleground state. Bethan Hallam, a Democratic Allegheny County councilperson tweeted, “They aren’t counting any ballots today! They stopped last night and are taking the day off." Hallam reportedly told the NY Times that the county has not given an adequate reason for today's decision to stop counting. Hopefully, in the coming days, we will finally see what the outcome for Pennsylvania will be looking like. ---------------------------------------- Have a story you want USA Herald to cover? Submit a tip here and if we think it's newsworthy, we'll follow up on it. Want to contribute a story? We also accept article submissions – check out our writer's guidelines here.