Allegheny County delays vote counting due to 'administrative work'

Allegheny County in Pennsylvania has announced that it will be waiting until Friday to count another 35,413 ballots due to the need to perform "administrative work," according to The New York Times election correspondent Trip Gabriel.

The delay appears to be connected to an issue from October whereby a company named Midwest Direct, which was contracted by the Allegheny County to deliver mail-in ballots, accidentally sent 29,000 ballots to the wrong voters.

According to officials, these ballots need to be checked to ensure that none of these voters voted twice, as those who were sent the wrong ballots later received new, correct ones. Other ballots, according to an email sent to Gabriel, had incomplete or ineligible information on them.

Others have suggested that the delay could be an attempt at voter fraud, an issue which Republicans have concerned themselves with heavily with the introduction of mass mail-in voting in response to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. No evidence has yet been presented to support this claim in Allegheny County.

Allegheny County is the home of Pittsburgh, the second largest city in Pennsylvania and a Democratic Party hub within the highly contested battleground state.

President Donald Trump currently maintains a narrow lead in the Keystone State over his challenger for the Presidency, former Vice President Joe Biden. Trump maintains a 1.8 percent lead with 92 percent of the vote accounted for.