The lawyers for incumbent Republican president Donald Trump have scored a small victory in a Pennsylvania court, which ruled that ballots from a small number of voters may not be counted because the voters failed to verify their identities before a November 9th deadline, Pennlive reports.

Commonwealth Court President Judge Mary Hannah Leavitt ruled that Commonwealth Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar did not have the authority to unilaterally extend the verification date for the ballots, cast by first time voters in Pennsylvania who did not present identification when they voted or registered to vote.

Boockvar decided that the deadline to verify voter registrations should be extended by three days, to November 12th, to match a court order that said ballots could be received up to three days after the election if they were postmarked by Election Day. 

The impacted ballots had been separated and left uncounted, per an earlier court order, so they are not part of the official count in Pennsylvania.  The specific number of impacted votes is unknown but thought to be low:  In Philadelphia alone, where more than 700,000 votes have been counted so far, 2,100 ballots that have not been verified for a variety of reasons have not yet been counted.

President-elect Joe Biden has a nearly 55,000 vote lead in Pennsylvania, and news outlets and other experts have called the state for Biden.  For Trump to overturn that count, he would have to find tens of thousands of additional votes, instead of invalidating uncounted votes that would lean to Biden.

Should it feel the need to, the Biden campaign may appeal the decision to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court.