‘Tremendous interest’ in Tuesday’s election; turnout high

Voter turnout in Montgomery County was extremely heavy Tuesday when county residents supported Democrat Hillary Clinton for president and current Democratic County Commissioners’ Chairman Josh Shapiro for Pennsylvania attorney general.

According to unofficial election tallies, 76.5 percent of the county’s registered voters cast ballots on Tuesday. That included 424,311 people who physically went to the polls and 16,110 people who voted by absentee ballot as of last Friday. There are 429 polling precincts in the county.

“I think there was tremendous interest in this election. It was historic no matter how you looked at it. It was potentially historic for electing the first woman. It was potentially historic for electing a very non-traditional candidate. So I think for everyone, it was something that everyone was engaged in,” said county Commissioner Val Arkoosh, who is also chairwoman of the county board of elections.

The turnout eclipsed that of November 2008, when 73.1 percent of registered voters cast ballots and Barack Obama was elected president. Historically, turnout is larger during presidential elections.

“We were very busy, really all over the county. It was pretty consistent that it was steady all day,” Arkoosh said.

The large turnout created long lines at some polling places, including atNew Hanover Lutheran Church, where some voters waited two hours or longer to cast their votes.

“We hadtwo polls, Lower Pottsgrove 2 and Perkiomen 1, that had quite a number of people in line at 8 p.m. so everyone who was in line at 8 p.m. was able to vote and they were there for a while, I think one of them was there for almost two hours,” Arkoosh said.

Turnout in Pottstown was 64.6 percent while 63.8 percent of Norristown’s registered voters cast ballots. Lansdale recorded a turnout of 73.9 percent, according to unofficial results.

The largest voter turnouts occurred in Marlborough, 82.3 percent, Upper Salford, 80.9 percent, Upper Dublin, 80.7 percent, Salford, 80.4 percent, Green Lane, 80.2 percent, and Skippack, 80 percent, according to unofficial results.

Statistics regarding this year’s turnout will change slightly considering additional absentee ballots that were filed during a courtapproved extension period that ended on Tuesday will be counted during next week’s final tabulation of the vote. Final turnout and election figures will be available after the completion of the tabulation, which begins next Monday.

While Clinton didn’t win the nationwide Electoral College vote or win Pennsylvania, she carried Montgomery County with 251,063 votes, or 58.19 percent of the vote. Presidentelect Donald Trump captured 37.27 percent, or 160,803 votes in the county, according to unofficial re- sults that included all 429 precincts.

In the race for state attorney general, Shapiro carried Montgomery County with 250,707 votes while Republican John Rafferty garnered 172,076 votes, according to unofficial results. Statewide, Shapiro captured 51 percent of the vote while Rafferty garnered 49 percent, according to unofficial results.

Shapiro will replace Democrat Kathleen Kane who stepped down in August after she was convicted at trial of leaking secret grand jury material to the media and lying about it. Kane was sentenced to 10 to 23 months in jail but remains free while appealing her conviction.

When Shapiro resigns his commissioner’s seat and heads to Harrisburg in Jan- uary, his post will have to be filled, presumably by another Democrat. Party leaders and Arkoosh will recommend a candidate for the seat to the county Board of Judges, which must give final approval. Whoever is appointed to the post will serve the remaining three years of Shapiro’s term.

Officials have not publicly identified potential candidates for the commissioner’s post.

“We have not made any decision on who that individual might be,” Arkoosh said. “I don’t know who I’m going to recommend. I’m taking this recommendation very seriously.”

Interested individuals can also nominate themselves for the post. Judges can choose to interview all candidates before making a final decision but are not required to conduct interviews.

For themost part, county officials reported few problems on Election Day. Two locations in Whitemarsh had to have voting machines replaced due to mechanical issues, officials said.

“They were replaced and there was always at least one working machine at the polling location,” explained Lorie Slass, county communications director. “Nobody’s vote was lost.”

One other mechanical glitch prevented election results from being posted on the county’s election website in a timely fashion. Results didn’t start appearing on the website until about 10:13 p.m. Tuesday, more than two hours after the polls closed. Meanwhile, websites of neighboring counties had election results posted beginning much earlier.

Arkoosh explained data from voting machine cartridge readers wasn’t loading automatically onto the county’s website.

“So the staff immediately reached out to our vendors and they got towork trying to sort out where the problem was,” said Arkoosh, adding staff also began to manually upload results onto the county website. “There was a website problem. Under normal circumstances it automatically pulls the data from the secured data base and puts it onto the website. That part needed some attention.”

By about 11 p.m., the county website was properly functioning and results were up to date, officials said. Arkoosh added that even though there was a delay in the results being posted on the county website, the real time results were available on the Pennsylvania Department of State’s website.

“The other important thing to remember is that at all times the votes were secure, the data was secure, the tallies were secure. This was not the result of any sort of breach or anything like that, it was just some technical problembetween theway that thewebsite was talking to our secured data base,” Arkoosh explained.

In another high-profile contest, county residents supported Democrat Katie McGinty over Republican Pat Toomey for U.S. Senator. McGinty, who lost statewide, garnered 232,836 votes in the county while Toomey garnered 186,954 votes, according to unofficial results.

Arkoosh thanked citizens who worked as poll workers and judges of elections.

“We just simply couldnot run an election in a county of our size without all of these wonderful citizens who step up to do this work and we really, really appreciate it,” Arkoosh said.

View your municipality’s elections results here: https://electionresults.montcopa.org/#/ county?cview=sw.

“The other important thing to remember is that at all times the votes were secure, the data was secure, the tallies were secure.”