DAUPHIN COUNTY, Pa. — Dauphin County Election Officials have remained confident that they will have results of the 53,000 mail-in ballots posted by early Wednesday morning. Election Day, they were ahead of schedule and said, the timeline was moved up to midnight.
Volunteers began pre-canvassing mail-in ballots at 7 a.m., by 11 a.m. all 53,000 ballots had been removed from the outer envelope. Volunteers then took the ballots out of the secrecy envelope and by 1 p.m. the ballots were in the process of being put through a high-speed scanner to be counted.
"Unless they are razor thin races, which they could be," said Commissioner Mike Pries. "We'll have a really good idea by late tonight or early wee hours of the morning what's happening in these races."
While some areas in the county saw long lines at polling places, others were empty. Presumably because about 32 percent of voters in the county voted by mail. Overall, at polling locations, Commissioner Pries says, there were some issues with some machines in the morning that were quickly fixed, and lines thinned out throughout the day.
"Every Election our technicians get called out whether it was our new machines or old machines," said Pries. "This could be a combination of battery issue or when judge of elections is setting up a machine, he didn't install the bag properly on the back."
Election Officials remind anyone who still have a mail-in ballot and wanting to vote that way, to drop off your mail-in ballot to your county election office by 8 p.m. tonight.