Allegheny County Will Continue To Count Votes Through Monday

PITTSBURGH (KDKA) -- Shortly after the announcement came that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are projected to be President-Elect and Vice President-Elect, Allegheny County Executive Rich Fitzgerald said he was pleased with the results.

"He's been Western Pennsylvania, Western Pennsylvania, Western Pennsylvania. I think it will benefit us. I think he will be helping us with infrastructure and other things we need," the Allegheny County Executive said.

Fitzgerald said he knew Pennsylvania would play a major role but didn't expect it to be the keystone state of the election.

"To be honest with you, I didn't. I thought he would do well, but I didn't realize we were the last thing to put it over the 270," Fitzgerald said.

He estimates more than 700,000 people voted across the county, and credits changing demographics to younger and more progressive voters for giving the President Elect about 40,000 more votes than Hillary Clinton got four years ago in the county.

"Whether you voted by mail or whether you voted in person, your voice was heard. Whoever you voted for your voice was heard," Fitzgerald said inside the elections warehouse on the North Side.

The county executive also expressed his thanks for the people who gave up hours upon hours of time to help with the election process.

"They've done yeomans' work under an enormous amount of pressure, leaving their families for hours on end," he said.

Although the races have been called, poll workers are expected to continue processing ballots through Monday.

"Now that it's been called and we have a President-Elect, we can move on," Fitzgerald said. "The work will continue. They still have about 7,000 mail-in ballots to process. These are the ones that will be a little more time-consuming than the first 20,000 or so they did. And then tomorrow they will start comparing the provisionals and then on Monday they'll probably start counting the provisional ballots. That's a very slow and ardous process because you have to match it up, they may have already voted, they may have not been registered, they may be registered at the wrong place, so it's really a every one has to be looked at by hand."

An Allegheny County spokesperson said that 7,253 votes had been added to Allegheny County's total. Of those, 5,184 voted for President Elect Joe Biden and 1,893 voted for incumbent President Donald Trump.

Fitzgerald also thanked the poll workers for their service and those who have been involved in the ballot counting process.

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