Here’s how Centre County’s mail-in process will work for Tuesday’s PA primary election
Nearly 10,700 Centre County voters requested a mail-in ballot for Tuesday’s primary election.
This is in line with the 2021 municipal primary when 10,538 Centre County voters requested a mail-in ballot. Centre County Commissioner Michael Pipe said in terms of the return of the ballots, this year they’re a bit ahead. As of 4 p.m. Thursday, 6,416 of the 10,679 mail-in ballots requested had been returned.
“We’re actually a little bit ahead of the curve. We’re probably at about 1,000 ballots ahead of where we were last year. So I think that with the ballots that get returned (Friday) we’ll be even more beyond where we were a year ago,” Pipe said.
The county’s election workers can begin counting the mail-in ballots when the polls open at 7 a.m. Tuesday. Pipe expects a “sizable” amount of mail-in ballots to be returned on Monday, but those ballots, as well as mail-in ballots returned up until 8 p.m. Tuesday, will most likely not be counted until Wednesday.
The secure ballot drop boxes are emptied once a day, Monday-Friday, so Monday’s collection would include the mail-in ballots returned on Saturday and Sunday. Those ballots are processed and sorted in alphanumeric order, and verified throughout the day. But, Pipe said, if they’re able to count those ballots on Tuesday, they will.
“At minimum we’ll have 6,400, roughly, ballots that will be opened on Tuesday,” Pipe said.
For the fourth time, the county will set up a “vote by mail room” at the Penn Stater Hotel & Conference Center, where all of this will take place. The county has 82 volunteers for processing mail-in ballots and absentee ballots.
“I would imagine that they will be done well ahead of 8 p.m. on Election Day, and will then be able to get those results as soon as polls close. Somewhere between eight o’clock and nine o’clock that upload will occur,” Pipe said.
