Philadelphia Vote Count Halted: Why Did They Stop? Are They Counting Now?

The counting of mail-in ballots in Philadelphia was halted for a period of time on Thursday, November 5, but has since resumed. The cause for this counting freeze was a ping-pong match of legal battles between the Biden and Trump campaigns in the race to win the presidency.

Earlier in the day, the Trump campaign won a legal battle in Pennsylvania when a court determined that poll watchers could observe ballot counting as close as six feet away from the ballot counters, according to Just the News. Then the mail count was briefly halted as Democrats appealed this decision with Philadelphia’s Supreme Court, NBC News reporter Maura Barrett tweeted, adding that the counting is also live-streamed. The Supreme Court has not yet made a decision on this appeal, but counting has resumed, MSNBC reports.

Pennsylvania is one of the last states with votes yet to be counted. Though it has reflected a strong lead for Trump in the last two days, Biden has roared back into contention as the mail-in ballots are processed. Now, the Biden campaign says it expects to win Pennsylvania. The Trump campaign has also signaled its confidence in Pennsylvania, while simultaneously accusing the state of potential voter fraud and election tampering.

Here’s what you need to know:

Biden & Trump Campaigns Battle Over the Ongoing Vote Counting in Pennsylvania

As President Donald Trump’s lead over former Vice President Joe Biden dwindles with each “ballot dump” in Pennsylvania, the Trump campaign has ramped up its efforts to delay or stop the vote count in Pennsylvania altogether. On Wednesday, the Trump campaign announced its intention to sue to stop the vote count in the crucial state over claims of a lack of “transparency,” CBS Philly reported.

Around that same time, Trump took to Twitter to falsely claim he had “won” a number of undetermined states, including Pennsylvania. He wrote, “We have claimed, for Electoral Vote purposes, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania (which won’t allow legal observers) the State of Georgia, and the State of North Carolina, each one of which has a BIG Trump lead. Additionally, we hereby claim the State of Michigan if, in fact, there was a large number of secretly dumped ballots as has been widely reported!“

Twitter has flagged the tweet with a warning that its content “is disputed and might be misleading about an election or other civic process.” Twitter also added the information that “official sources may not have called the race when this was Tweeted.”

After the court determined on Thursday that Trump poll watchers could stand as close as six feet away from ballot counters, Trump took to Twitter again. “Big legal win in Pennsylvania!” He tweeted.

LIVE Election Results & Map for Pennsylvania: Who’s Winning?

Heavy has partnered with Decision Desk HQ to provide live election results for every state in the country. Here’s the latest update on Pennsylvania:

Click here for the dynamic elections data.

On Election Day, Trump sprang ahead in the votes in a number of crucial states, including Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin. This was predicted by many pundits, by nature of how the votes are counted: Election Day votes are counted first and were predicted to be dominated by GOP voters, while the tens of millions of mail-in ballots would be counted later. These absentee ballots were predicted to lean heavily Democratic, and they did. Throughout Wednesday, Biden’s lead slowly crept back and overtook Trump in the key states of Michigan and Wisconsin.

On Thursday, Biden was continuing to close the massive gap between him and the incumbent president in Pennsylvania. As of Thursday at noon, there are still several hundred thousand votes to be counted, nearly all of them from Democratic strongholds.

READ NEXT: Philadelphia Poll Watcher in Viral Video Was Mistakenly Turned Away [WATCH]