CNN and Fox tripped over themselves to be first to claim presidential victory for Joe Biden. Fox put itself in a bind by prematurely declaring Arizona for Biden on election night. As I write, the vote difference in Arizona has shrunk to 12,000, which is closer than Pennsylvania (nearly 54,000) and Wisconsin (20,000) and even Georgia (14,000). Georgia has ordered a statewide recount for the presidential vote. The Trump campaign may ultimately win Arizona. How about Pennsylvania?

Though increasingly unlikely, Pennsylvania isn’t out of the realm of President Trump’s possibilities. That’s true not merely because of legal challenges but because, indeed, all votes have not been counted, including a significant block of ballots tilting Trump.

Here are key things to watch.

First, there are the Trump legal challenges. These include challenging the original effort by four Pennsylvania Supreme Court judges to rewrite state election law, namely extending the receipt of mail-in ballots after the Nov. 3 deadline. These judges overstepped their constitutional authority; it is the legislature’s exclusive authority in the commonwealth to determine election rules.

That’s why U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito issued an emergency order the Friday after the vote ordering that every county election board comply with state guidance and segregate and secure ballots received after Election Day but before Nov. 6 at 5 p.m. Alito’s order stopped short of ordering boards to stop counting the ballots. Nonetheless, whether those ballots are included in the final tabulation will be determined by the legal process.

Moreover, the Trump campaign has filed an 86-page lawsuit in U.S. District Court. Directed at Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar, defendants include the boards of elections in Allegheny, Centre, Chester, Delaware, Montgomery, Northampton and Philadelphia counties. It alleges that “Allegheny and Philadelphia Counties alone received and processed 682,479 mail-in and absentee ballots without review by the political parties and candidates. These are unprecedented numbers in Pennsylvania’s elections history. Rather than engaging in an open and transparent process to give credibility to Pennsylvania’s brand-new voting system, the processes were hidden during the receipt, review, opening, and tabulation of those 682,479 votes in direct contravention of the Election Code.”

And then there are the cases of voter fraud being compiled. Erie County is receiving national attention because of a sworn affidavit by postal worker Richard Hopkins, who said that Postmaster Rob Weisenbach directed him and co-workers to hand over ballots received after Election Day, which he then back-dated. “Weisenbach was back-dating the postmarks on the ballots to make it appear as though the ballots had been collected on November 3, 2020 despite them in fact being collected on November 4 and possibly later,” said Hopkins. The case has been passed to the U.S. Department of Justice. The Washington Post reported that when Hopkins was interviewed by federal agents on Monday, he recanted his allegations; but Hopkins disputes the report and says he did not recant.

Perhaps more significant than legal challenges is the situation with provisional ballots. A provisional ballot includes, for instance, a person registered to vote at one precinct but who voted at a different precinct and thus had had to fill out a provisional ballot. There are roughly 100,000 of these, each evaluated by a board of three individuals. Not until last weekend did the tabulation begin. With about 30,000 counted as of Thursday, they skew to Trump by 54%. If the margins continue that way, Trump could narrow Biden’s lead close enough to trigger an automatic statewide recount (a margin of 0.5%).

In other words, this isn’t over. Buckle up, Pennsylvania.

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