Jonathan Lai focuses on voting and elections and uses data to explore those topics, including voting rights, gerrymandering, election security, demographics, voting patterns, and campaign finance.
The fight comes down to just a few dozen votes, but a court decision in a Western Pennsylvania state Senate race could have major impact on future elections.
Late-arriving ballots remain excluded from Pennsylvania’s certified presidential vote tallies, and are not counted as part of Joe Biden’s 81,000-vote victory. But their fate has other implications.
It’s normally a procedural footnote, ceremonial and largely unseen. But this year, Trump’s attempts to challenge Biden’s election at every level have put the day in the spotlight.
There are multiple reasons the full picture of Pennsylvania’s results took longer to emerge than in other large battleground states this year, but one stands out.
Biden’s victory margin was 105,000 votes better than what Hillary Clinton amassed in 2016. That was more than enough to offset the gains Trump made in smaller counties across the state.
