Shortly after midnight Wednesday, at least 200,000 mail-in ballots remained to be counted in Philadelphia and the four collar counties as the presidential race remained too close to call, with area officials saying votes could take until Wednesday evening to be fully counted.

Even though these crucial and populous counties remained undecided, Former President Donald Trump showed a statewide lead, supported by rural areas and the Rust Belt. vice-president Kamala HarrisThe path to victory in the state depends on massive turnout from Philadelphia and its suburbs.

But while Harris is certain to win the city by a wide margin, Trump succeeded in his mission to narrow his loss there. With 95% of the votes counted in Philadelphia, Trump had surpassed his 2020 vote total in the city. Up to 20,000 mail-in ballots could still remain to be counted.

Meanwhile in Bucks Countythe region’s only purple county, Trump had a narrow lead as of 12:40 a.m., with about three-quarters of in-person votes counted but there were still more than 60,000 mail-in ballots left to count.

Under state law, most counties in the state continue counting ballots overnight, do not stop the counting process until all votes have been counted (except for provisional ballots and others that are voted on by county election boards a few days later).

“They are well aware of the level of scrutiny, they are well aware of the importance of these elections for all the positions on the ballot,” the secretary of state said. Al Schmidt the Commonwealth’s 67 counties said Tuesday evening. “They will work late into the evening, or even the next day or two.”

In 2020, Philadelphia didn’t finish counting its mail-in ballots until the Saturday after the election. This year, county election officials say they plan to finish Wednesday. Nick Custodio, deputy to Philadelphia Commissioner Lisa Deeley, said in a text message Tuesday evening that the city was ahead of expectations and had processed 115,000 mail-in ballots as of 8 p.m., when she anticipated that It would process between 85,000 and 100,000 during this period.

“We will be here 24/7 until the job is done,” City Commissioner Seth Bluestein, a Republican, said at a news conference.

City election officials said at a news conference that there were just over 202,000 absentee ballots cast; About 37,000 mail-in ballots remained uncounted as of midnight Wednesday.

Meanwhile, 437,427 in-person votes were counted in Philadelphia as of midnight, and that number will continue to rise in the coming hours as election workers continue to process ballots.

Bluestein said in-person votes will continue to appear on the city’s results website in waves, and it usually takes until 1 or 2 a.m. for those ballots to be “almost done.”

Suburban counties surrounding Philadelphia also predicted the work would be finished by Wednesday, provided things continue to run smoothly.

Delaware County Elections Director Jim Allen said the county is expected to finish its election at 6 a.m. Wednesday.

Montgomery County Commissioner Neil Makhija, a Democrat, predicted the county would finish its work Wednesday morning. Additionally, spokespersons for Chester and Bucks counties both said they planned to finish counting ballots on Wednesday.

This count continues even if the media announces the presidential race for one or the other candidate.

In-person ballots began arriving at counting centers Tuesday evening.

In Bucks County, car after car lined up outside the Bucks County Administration Building at 10 p.m. Tuesday, delivering completed ballots from precincts across the county.

Inside the building, USB drives and voting machine cassettes, as well as provisional ballots, were kept. Meanwhile, paper ballots were separated and sealed in black bags that were loaded into vans and driven to an undisclosed warehouse under a quarter moon.

Meanwhile, workers continued to count mail-in ballots.

Philadelphia, Bucks, Delaware, Montgomery and Chester counties each announced a first round of absentee ballots Tuesday evening, but will continue to count and report absentee ballots while reporting in-person votes throughout the night. As of 11:30 p.m., several in-person precincts were still not reporting and it was unclear how many mail-in ballots still needed to be counted.

Most in-person ballot counts are expected to be completed by Tuesday evening, but processing mail-in ballots is an arduous process involving sseveral steps that take the counties much more time. Even after in-person counting is complete, counties will continue to count mail-in ballots.

It is likely that these votes will move the totals towards Democratsincluding Vice President Kamala Harris, as they are counted because Democrats requested and returned more mail-in ballots than Republicans. This is not a sign of malfeasance, it simply depends on how ballots are counted and differences in voting behavior across parties.

Additionally, these counties’ votes are likely to be skewed blue, as Philadelphia, Chester, Delaware, and Montgomery counties are Democratic strongholds.

Even after those ballots are counted, counties will still need to count provisional ballots and vote on whether to count absentee ballots that were held up for date, signature or identity verification issues. Military ballots also have until November 12 to be returned.

If the race is close, these are the polls that could give rise to a lot of disputes, with each party seeking to maximize its own vote tally. Counties then have until November 25 to certify their results.