An appellate judge in Pennsylvania has ordered that President Donald Trump's election observers are to be allowed immediately into the Philadelphia Convention Center, where mailed ballots are being counted in the state's highly contested race for the presidency, former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi said Thursday.
"An appellate judge just entered an order saying we are to be immediately let in the convention center with six-foot distancing of all access of the vote counting effective immediately, so we can observe that these folks are being counted," Bondi told Fox Business' Stuart Varney shortly after the ruling was issued and before she and Trump senior campaign adviser Corey Lewandowski held a press conference to announce the decision.
"Our 15 people who are in there are allowed to watch the ballots being counted," Bondi told Varney. "That's part of our process created by the legislature under the United States Constitution. The supervisor of elections, the secretary of state cannot come in here and say we cannot do that and that's what she was doing. It's only in the blue counties, which makes it even worse."
An announcement is expected to be made in Nevada concerning legal action later Thursday morning, and Bondi said there are also people on the ground in Arizona and Georgia.
"We are going to win this election," said Bondi. "We have won Pennsylvania and will not have them take it away from us by bringing in ballots later than postmarked later than Nov. 3."
She added that she and Lewandowski will not leave Pennsylvania until the vote count is final, and accused Pennsylvania's Democratic Party of wanting to postpone the hearing three or four more days.
"They are trying to drag it out until the election is over," she said. "The judge did not buy and we are going to fight and they won't get away with it."
With the ruling, observers can now see how the ballots are postmarked, and "that's all we ever wanted to do. Every ballot that's postmarked after the deadline takes away from the great people of Pennsylvania who voted fairly and legally in this election."
During the press conference, Lewandowski, who is in Philadelphia with Bondi to represent the Trump campaign's efforts to observe the counting process, told members of the media that "democracy dies in darkness."
"This is the opportunity to shed light on what is going on inside the building," he said. "Our observers will be six feet behind people counting the votes ... we'll go in here right now and start watching what's going on. Not from 30 feet away or 100 feet away, from six feet away. This is a win. What you will see is the Democrats are going to try to stop this from happening. They will appeal this decision. They don't want the American people to know what's going on here."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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