TheCable

The winner of the United States presidential election “could definitely” be known within the next couple of hours.

Kathy Boockvar, Pennsylvania secretary of state, told CNN the state could finish counting its votes by the end of Thursday (latest 6am, Friday Nigerian time).

She also said: “In the meantime, we are going to be counting every ballot.”

The state, with 20 electoral votes, is one of the battlegrounds that would decide the final outcome of the race between Donald Trump and Joe Biden.

Eighty-eight percent of its votes in the state have so far been counted with Trump leading with a margin of 114,00.

The US president has so far garnered 3,232,131 votes as against Biden’s 3,120,732 votes, according to AP.

However, Pennsylvania could be Biden’s final seal on his path to the White House as he is just six votes away from the 270 electoral votes needed to win the poll.

Trump led Pennsylvania in the election night count with a margin of close to 700,000 votes, and went ahead to declare himself a winner there.

“We are winning Pennsylvania by a tremendous amount. We’re up 690,000 votes in Pennsylvania. These aren’t even close. It’s not like, ‘Oh, it’s close,’” he had said at the White House.

However, as votes cast by mail started coming in, his lead narrowed down to 130,000 as of Thursday morning, part of why the US president is crying foul and asking officials to stop counting.

With 89 percent of the total votes counted so far, AP is reporting that Biden has secured 264 votes as against Trump’s 214.