Montco Anticipates It Will Take 40 Hours To Count Mail-In Ballots

NORRISTOWN, PA — It will take elections officials an estimated 40 more hours to count all mail-in ballots in Montgomery County, county leaders said late Tuesday evening. That would mean final results in the county would be available by around 2 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 5.

The historic 2020 election brought voters out in record numbers both via mail-in ballots and in-person at the polls around the county Tuesday. Exact numbers were not yet available, though party officials on both sides of the aisle suggested Tuesday that numbers could be as high as 90 percent of all registered voters.

"Anecdotally, we had record turnout in many places," Montgomery County Commissioner Val Arkoosh confirmed.

About 77 percent of registered voters cast ballots in the 2016 election.

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Despite the record turnout, long lines and some related confusion, and of course the ongoing coronavirus pandemic and the related array of health precautions, there were no significant issues in the county Tuesday.

"I'm happy to report we did not have any major disruptions at the polls," Arkoosh said.

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The only votes counted in the county as of 10:30 p.m. Tuesday evening were mail-in ballots, and early were very favorable for Democrats. This was expected, as the bulk of mail-in voters are Democrats, though the early returns heavily favored blue candidates in all races around the county, with former Vice President Joe Biden leading President Trump in the county by a tally of 73,917 to 8,466.

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There were a total of 236,749 mail-in ballots returned to Montgomery County Voter Services as of 8 p.m. Tuesday. There were 275,782 ballots approved in the county, so that means that some 39,000 have still not been returned. They could be in the mail; votes can continue to be counted as long as they are postmarked by Nov. 3 and received by Friday, Nov. 6.

Meanwhile, the 275,782 ballots that have been received will be counted "around the clock," Commissioner Ken Lawrence said.

Lawrence also briefly addressed the lawsuit filed by Republican candidate for U.S. Congress, Kathy Barnette, against Montgomery County. Barnette alleged that the county illegally "pre-canvassed" mail-in ballots before 7 a.m. on Election Day, checking them for errors and returning them to voters so that they could fix them, ensuring their vote was counted.

"We believe that what we did was permissible under the Election Code," Lawrence said Tuesday night.

Lawrence added that the case only impacts 49 ballots, which is starkly different from what local Republicans are saying. The lawsuit filed by Barnette demands that 1,200 ballots be discarded.

A federal judge ordered that none of these 49 ballots with errors be counted until a hearing in U.S. District Court at 9 a.m. Wednesday.