Philadelphia City Commissioner Omar Sabir said more results on ballots in Philadelphia County would come “sometime today,” and that ballots can’t be processed “like a microwave dinner.”
When pressed, he did not give more specific details on timing.
“Okay, it’ll be at some point today. Stay tuned,” Sabir said while speaking to CNN’s John Berman and Phil Mattingly.
Sabir said workers are going through about 20,000 “problem child” ballots now. These are ballots that have issues with them – such as missing a signature or having a wrong date. These ballots must be reviewed and then decided on whether or not they can be counted by a panel of three commissioners. Then there are about 18,000 provisional ballots issued on Election Day to count, Sabir said.
“Again, you know, we have approximately about… 40,000 or so votes. Again, we have 20,000 of those ballots and then 18,000 or so of the provisional ballots. So again, so we’re going to try our best to get the problem childs, the problematic ballots,” Sabir said.
Sabir encouraged people to remain calm and be patient while the county works to finish the count.
“It’s not like a microwave dinner. It’s not like you just throw around and get instant gratification. It takes time, we’re going to be meticulous. We’re going to be accurate. You know, believe me, I want to go home just as much as everyone else wants to go home, but we have to take our time. We have to do it right,” Sabir said.
Philadelphia city commissioner gives update on latest ballot count: