Staff at the Voter Registration Office is wrapping up an unprecedented stretch of solving of unusual problems set by their ballot vendor. They have been working non-stop, even extending their hours at night and on the weekend to get everything sorted out ahead of Election Day.
Karen Chilchott, the County Clerk, said it's incredible to see how much voting matters to people that they would be willing to wait for hours to get their mail in ballot issues resolved.
After days of long lines and fielding questions about mail in ballots, it all changes on Tuesday when the focus becomes the vote count and the first results Erie county will see comes from the mail in ballots.
"Well I think in the last election we had about 19,000 mail in ballots and we had two scanners going and we were done with those by 11:00 p.m. So I think, now we have two more scanners, we have four scanners, so even with twice as many mail ballots, we can get those processed in a good time", said Chilcott.
Once the polls close at 8:00 p.m. on Tuesday, that's when more numbers will start to pour in.
"Everyone in Erie County is voting on a paper ballot, those ballots are getting scanned in and an image of those ballots are captured on the media device. So we will bring on media device at the end of the day and the paper ballots. The other media device is actually a backup and we leave that in the Dominion machine at the polls", explained Chilcott.
But Chilcott doesn't want to promise that Erie County will see results on Tuesday night, "Originally, I was feeling very confident about the mail in ballots and we would have those answers on election night. I understand with the mail in ballots and provisional ballots there could be some delays, it's going to take some time and because of the lawsuit and the attorneys involved and want to see a lot of those ballots being opened so it may take some time for Erie County.
Chilcott said out of the 42,000 mail in ballots requested already 74 percent have already been returned, which could give a good indication about what voting turnout will look like on Tuesday.