'Highest ethical standards' in Philly vote count

(10 Nov 2020) The Associated Press on Saturday called the presidential contest for former Vice President Joe Biden, after determining that the remaining ballots left to be counted in Pennsylvania would not allow Trump to catch up. But Trump's campaign filed litigation in federal court over Pennsylvania's presidential election, saying registered Democratic voters were treated more favorably than Republican voters. Trump has refused to concede. "I have been on the side of a losing campaign, so I understand sometimes you want to exhaust, you know, whatever possible resource that you had, it's part of the process," Omar Sabir, Philadelphia City Commissioner said. "They're more than welcome to do it," Sabir said, "I just know that we have been following, to my knowledge, you know, the highest ethical standards as regards to this election process." The 85-page lawsuit itself contained no evidence of voter fraud, other than a smattering of allegations, such as an election worker in Chester County altering "over-voted" ballots by changing votes that had been marked for Trump to another candidate. The lawsuit asks the court to prevent the state, Philadelphia and six counties from certifying the results of the election. It also seeks to block them from counting mail-in ballots that weren't witnessed by a Trump campaign representative when they were processed or counting ballots cast by voters who were given an opportunity to fix mail-in ballots that were going to be disqualified for a technicality. It accuses Allegheny County and Philadelphia — where Trump was badly beaten in unofficial election returns — of receiving and processing 682,479 mail-in and absentee ballots without review by political parties and candidates. Sabir said that since October, there have been threats made but refused to go into detail. Security was increased leading up to Election Day and the days following as the country wited ofr the results to  trickle in. "Stop with the threats. Stop trying to intimidate people. Please allow us to do our job. You know, that's what makes America a great place. Ok, it's Democracy. It's free, open and fair elections," Sabir said. Courts have thus far rejected Republican demands in Pennsylvania and other battleground states to throw out ballots or stop vote counting. "I think right now America really needs healing," Sabir said. "There's a lot of strong opinions on both sides. Everyone's passionate. But again, I think there's a lot of work that needs to be done. And hopefully, you know, after everything settled down, you know, we can move forward as a country." Find out more about AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/HowWeWork Twitter:   / ap_archive   Facebook:   / aparchives   ​​ Instagram:   / apnews   You can license this story through AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/you...