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Record mail-in ballot turnout expected

Posted at 7:42 PM, Oct 20, 2020
and last updated 2020-10-21 15:50:56-04

Tucson, Ariz. -- Thousands of ballots are counted for each general election, but folks at the Pima County Elections Office say this year there could be a record-breaking turnout.

In fact, 58,000 ballots were counted on the first day.

Which means, from here on out, it’s all hands on deck there; from folks prepping the ballots to actually putting thousands of them through the machines to be counted, daily.

The Pima County Elections Office Director, Brad Nelson tells KGUN9 he’s never seen a turnout quite like this one.

"It’s off to the races, so to speak, counting ballots. Certainly the 625,000 number I gave you as the number of eligible voters for this election just in Pima County...we’ve never been that high before. So, it stands to reason that we’ll have an increased number of ballots, bigger than we’ve had before,” he added.

Though he says they’re prepared for the high turnout.

“We’ve got twice the people that we would have had during the 2018 and 2016 elections, so we think we’re manned appropriately,” he told KGUN9.

Roughly 65,000 to 70,000 ballots will be counted per day.

Here’s what they expect at around 8 o’clock on election night.

“We’ll probably have counted around 400,000 early ballots, and so we are expecting a huge turnout for the mail ballot or early ballot situation,” Nelson said.

If you’re curious about how the process looks like, you can watch on the Pima County Elections Office livestream.

Click here for more information.