PHP query always returns that a user exists but running the same query directly to the database produces no results? – Phpmyadmin

The behavior I expect is that a query is first ran on the database to determine if a username or email already exist on there. If they do, skip if((count((array)$result) == 0)) because the result will either be 1 or 2 if a username or email is already present or 0 if neither are.

However, the if statement is being skipped even if both values are unique and else { echo ('Username or Email already exists!');} is being executed.

Similarly phrased questions I have checked but did not find a solution here and here

if(isset($_POST['submit']))
{
 $username = !empty($_POST['username']) ? trim($_POST['username'])  : null;
 $email   = !empty($_POST['email'])     ? trim($_POST['email'])     : null;

//other variables remove for brevity, but they are all formed the exact same

$query = $pdo->prepare("SELECT * FROM users WHERE username= ? OR email= ? LIMIT 2");
$query->bindParam(1, $username, PDO::PARAM_STR);
$query->bindParam(2, $email, PDO::PARAM_STR);
$query->execute();
$result = $query->fetch(PDO::FETCH_ASSOC);

if ((count((array)$result) == 0))
{
    
        $query = $pdo->prepare ("INSERT INTO users (firstname, lastname, username, password, email, address, city, province, postalcode) VALUES (?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?)");
        
        $query->bindValue(1, $fname,    PDO::PARAM_STR);
        $query->bindValue(2, $lname,    PDO::PARAM_STR);
        $query->bindValue(3, $username, PDO::PARAM_STR);
        $query->bindValue(4, $password, PDO::PARAM_STR);
        $query->bindValue(5, $email,    PDO::PARAM_STR);
        $query->bindValue(6, $address,  PDO::PARAM_STR);
        $query->bindValue(7, $city,     PDO::PARAM_STR);
        $query->bindvalue(8, $province, PDO::PARAM_STR);
        $query->bindValue(9, $postalcode, PDO::PARAM_STR);
        $query->execute();
        
                echo 'Registration Successful!';
}
    
            
    else { echo ('Username or Email already exists!');}
}
//closing the database after execution
    $query = null;
    $pdo = null;

For example SELECT * FROM users WHERE (username='kanas' OR email='[email protected]'); returns zero rows as expected in PHPMyAdmin. But when ran through my html whats echoed back is "Username or Email already exists!"

The create table:

CREATE TABLE `users` (
  `userID` int(11) NOT NULL,
  `firstname` varchar(50) NOT NULL,
  `lastname` varchar(50) NOT NULL,
  `username` varchar(50) NOT NULL,
  `password` varchar(50) NOT NULL,
  `lastlogin` date NOT NULL,
  `permission` int(3) NOT NULL,
  `email` varchar(320) NOT NULL,
  `address` varchar(50) NOT NULL,
  `city` varchar(50) NOT NULL,
  `province` varchar(50) NOT NULL,
  `postalcode` varchar(6) NOT NULL,
  `userrequests` text NOT NULL
);