Montco still counting primary ballots
NORRISTOWN » Montgomery County election officials continue to count ballots from the June 2 primary and said they don’t expect to have a final tally before next week.
County Commissioner Kenneth E. Lawrence Jr., who is also chairman of the county Board of Elections, said Thursday that the county received 126,000 mail-in ballots during the primary. Gov. Tom Wolf previously issued an executive order allowing a handful of counties, including Montgomery, to continue receiving mail-in ballots for seven days, as long as they were postmarked by June 2, because of unrest in Philadelphia and other parts of the state after the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis.
“They have been counted,” Lawrence said during a Thursday
news briefing, referring to the mail-in ballots. “What they are counting now are the provisional ballots, which have to be counted by hand. We had almost 5,000 provisional ballots. That’s what’s left to be counted now. The provisional ballots need to be counted by hand, so it takes a little bit longer.”
Voters who may not have received their mail-in ballots in time for the June 2 election had the option to go to their polling place and ask a judge of election for a provisional ballot to cast their vote.
Lee Soltysiak, county chief operating officer, said the counting of provisional ballots will go “at least deep into next week.”
“It’s a multistep process with each ballot to verify that the voter
“What they are counting now are the provisional ballots, which have to be counted by hand. We had almost 5,000 provisional ballots.” — Montgomery County Commissioner Kenneth E. Lawrence Jr.
is in the right precinct, that they’re registered and that they did not return a mailin or absentee ballot. We have a team of folks working on that,” Soltysiak said. “We’re getting closer.
“Once the (provisional ballots) are reviewed, those that can be accepted are accepted, and they’ll be added to the final count,” Soltysiak added.
Lawrence said 88,688 people voted in-person June 2.
Officials had dubbed the June 2 election the “pandemic primary” because the coronavirus outbreak presented numerous challenges for election officials.
As the virus continued
to grip the region, traditional poll workers, many of them senior citizens, began opting not to work this election cycle, so election officials temporarily reduced the number of polling places from 352 to 140, a reduction of 60%, for the primary.
Lawrence said officials are already preparing for November’s general election.
“We’re reaching out now. If anyone wants to be a poll worker in November, they can let us know now,” Lawrence said. “This was always a temporary poll consolidation plan, we’ve been very clear on that, and we would like to be back to our full number of polling locations in November.
“So we’re not waiting. If someone is interested in being a poll worker in November,
they can contact Voter Services and let us know now.”
Meanwhile, during Thursday’s news briefing, officials reported 45 new positive cases of the coronavirus, which brings the county’s total number of cases to 7,682 since March 7 when the first two cases of the virus were identified in the county. The individuals ranged in age from 6 to 98, and they resided in 38 municipalities.
Additionally, officials reported three more deaths from the virus, bringing the county’s death toll to 765 since March 7. To date, 405 females and 360 males have died from the virus in the county, according to county Commissioners’ Chairwoman Dr. Valerie Arkoosh.
The racial breakdown for those that have died included 18 Asian; three Asian Indian; three Asian Korean; 93 African American;
and 282 white. Information about the ethnicity of the remaining 366 individuals was unavailable.
Officials said 641 of the total 765 deaths involved individuals residing in longterm care facilities, representing about 84% of the total deaths.
The 765 total deaths were “confirmed positive” COVID-19 cases through the use of lab tests.
Officials reported that as of Thursday, 92 other deaths in the county have been listed as “probable” COVID-19 deaths. Those are deaths that list COVID-19 as a cause of death on a death certificate but in which there was no laboratory confirmation of the virus.
The number of hospitalized COVID-19 patients in the county continues to decrease. On Thursday, officials reported 135 hospitalized patients, “which is a continued slow decrease
over the last several weeks,” Arkoosh said.
“Just to put this into context, at our peak we had well over 400 patients that were hospitalized. So, this is very good progress,” Arkoosh added.
Arkoosh said testing for anyone who needs or wants to be tested continues to be available at the county’s community-based testing sites in Pottstown, Norristown and Whitpain.
A walkup testing site is available at the county’s Office of Public Health Pottstown Health Center at 364 King St. Testing is available Monday through Friday from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. by appointment only. To make an appointment, residents should call 610-970-2937 beginning at 8:30 a.m. daily.
A walk-up communitybased testing site is located on the parking lot of the Delaware Valley Community Health Norristown Regional Health Center,
1401 DeKalb St., in Norristown. Testing is provided by appointment only from 11 a.m. until 1 p.m. Monday through Friday and is open to Norristown residents and all established patients of the Delaware Valley Community Health Center regardless of where they reside. Residents can register for testing by calling 610592-0680 starting at 8:30 a.m. daily.
A drive-thru site at the central campus of the Montgomery County Community College in Whitpain is open daily from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. as testing supplies allow. Registration for each day’s appointments will open at 8 a.m. daily and will remain open until all available spots are filled. Individuals can register online at www.montcopa.org/COVID-19 or can call 610-6313000 to register for a testing appointment. The drivethru site will be closed on Saturday and Sunday.