Just wait for the votes to be counted, Pittsburgh

As of 4 p.m. today, Nov. 4, there are about 110,000 mail-in ballots left to be counted in Allegheny County. Of those, about 29,000 aren’t allowed to be counted until Fri., Nov. 6 at 5 p.m. per a court ruling.

Despite what President Trump’s campaign is saying, and requesting, about halting the vote, those ballots will be counted, but it will take time. That’s true in Allegheny County, and that’s true of the hundreds of thousands of other ballots left to be counted in Southeastern Pennsylvania. Republicans are trying to gaslight Pittsburgh and other Pennsylvanians about the length of time to count ballots, but the GOP-controlled state legislature rejected a request for a clean pre-canvassing bill that would have allowed ballots to be counted earlier. Here we are.

So far, Allegheny County’s mail-in ballots have been strongly favored by presidential candidate Joe Biden. He leads those ballots in the county by a 4-1 margin. A similar margin is replicated in the Southeastern Pennsylvania mail-in ballots, too. If those margins hold, it’s likely Biden will overtake Trump after all of the ballots are counted.

So, let's wait for all those ballots to be counted. And be patient. Gov. Tom Wolf urged so yesterday.

“I encourage all of us to take a deep breath and be patient,” Wolf said in a statement. “I’m urging Pennsylvanians to be calm, stay patient, and remain calm in the days ahead.”

It’s been a long slog for Allegheny County election workers. The mail-in ballots have to be removed from two different envelopes, due to the secrecy envelope requirement, then meticulously flattened so they can be fed properly into the scanner.

This takes time. Longer than county officials had anticipated, but so what?

We sit through referees reviewing every single play during the Steelers games so they get the calls right. Let’s allow the election worker to get the votes right. It’s what Pittsburgh and Pennsylvania deserves.