Turnout has been described as low, but it’s still been a busy day and night at the Erie County Courthouse.
That continues where the process of counting the votes is underway and will continue until all the mail-in ballots are counted.
Jill McCormick was live from the Erie County Courthouse with the latest on the efforts to get the job done by midnight.
This process is like a well-oiled machine.
Poll workers bring the voting documents in from each precinct and then they are brought inside. Adding to this process is an increase in mail-in ballots.
Now, mail-in ballots can be mailed in or dropped off at the official box outside of the courthouse.
While we waited for the clock to strike 8 pm, at 7:59, a last minute voter made a dash to drop off his ballot and have it included in this municipal primary.
At 8 pm, they brought the last batch of mail-in ballots inside the elections office and started the process of counting.
Because of new funding calling “election integrity money,” it is required that these mail-in ballots be counted by midnight on election night and posted by 12:01 am
Even though municipal primaries and elections have lower voter turnout, they are encouraged by the number of ballots requested, and hope a large percentage were sent back to be counted tonight.
“I think we have over 178,000 voters in Erie County, and only close to about 18,000 requested those mail-in ballots. But again, what a great response it has been on those ballots. I’m anxious to see what we have tonight, if we get close to 15-16 thousand, it’s hard to say. A lot of folks just feel more comfortable doing that. They don’t have to worry, they can still vote in the privacy of their own home, research the candidates and then cast that vote,” said Julie Slomski, Clerk of Elections.
There is still no official percentage in terms of voter turnout, but it appears low from initial reports.
