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In advance of today's primary election, the Lycoming County Board of Elections was officially sworn in Monday by Forrest Lehman, director of Voter Services.
The board is composed of county commissioners Scott Metzger, Marc Sortman and Mark Mussina plus Matt McDermott, chief clerk.
Election day worker assignments were also approved at the Board of Elections meeting with what Lehman estimated was well over 100 county employees who will help keep things running smoothly today.
"That represents 20% of our workforce all coming together to make the election happen, which is, you know, fantastic," he said, adding that it's typical of every election.
"It actually isn't even everybody because there's entire departments like maintenance, adult probation -- the sheriff's office is almost emptied out -- that are all part of the election night operation where we're unloading as people are coming back. But these are folks who are helping us during the day in Voter Services as rovers, answering phones, going out to precincts, helping on mail ballots; people who are in the office on election night processing the precincts with me. It's a huge cross section of the county. It's great to have it happen," he said.
Voter turnout in a primary election tends to be less and, this year, there are few contested races. Of the 4,500 mail-in ballots requested and sent out, Lehman said that only about 3,300 have come back, which could be indicative of a lower number of voters choosing to vote in-person as well, or not at all.
"The funny part of it is, it's a huge lift for us no matter what the turnout is because we've got to do the same amount of work to get the precincts open, get the poll workers out there, process everything going out and coming back," he said.
"I'd rather the turnout was high every election so then we didn't get dressed up for nothing, you know. It's a huge project. It might be one of the biggest events for which the county government is responsible," he said.
The extra workers also come at a cost of overtime for hourly employees, an amount that is figured into Lehman's budget.
"I have to budget for the overtime and, obviously in a presidential year, we get even more people working extra hours. And so the overtime gets budgeted higher ... It can be thousands of dollars," he said. "That's another good reason why everybody should get out -- so that investment we're making is worth it."
Also approved at the meeting were emergency appointments to local election board vacancies, including mostly inspectors and a few judges. The vacancies could be the result of someone resigning or becoming temporarily unavailable for the election due to travel or, for this year, the election occurring during Passover, Lehman said.
The polls open at 7 a.m. and will remain open until 8 p.m.