Wednesday, November 13, 2024

Election Day aftermath: Here’s what went down in the Historic Triangle

(WYDaily/Photo by Gabrielle Rente)

Eligible voters in the Historic  Triangle on Tuesday flocked to polling centers to cast their ballots for the next President of the United States.

The polls closed at 7 p.m. for in-person voting, and while early in-person voting ended Saturday, those who wished to cast a mail-in ballot had until midnight of Election Day.

Meanwhile, official presidential results will not be available until later in the week as registrars finish tallying absentee ballots.

But local results for the House and Senate are officially in.

Here’s a look at what occurred in the polls around the Historic Triangle.

James City County

“We’re in the process of certifying the elections for canvas,” Dianna Moorman, director of elections for the James City County Voter & Registrar department said Thursday.

She noted it’s still an “ongoing process” because they are still counting ballots received by mail — which is listed as a different precinct on the Department of Elections’ website — until noon on Friday.

See the chart below which compares the 2020 and 2016 presidential elections number of registered voters and the number of ballots cast. The following numbers for the 2020 ballots cast are up-to-date as of Thursday, but are expected to change.

A side by side comparison of the number of registered voters and the number of ballots cast in the 2020 and 2016 presidential elections for James City County. Numbers courtesy of the JCC Voter registration & elections. (WYDaily/ Julia Marsigliano)
A side by side comparison of the number of registered voters and the number of ballots cast in the 2020 and 2016 presidential elections for James City County. Numbers courtesy of the JCC Voter registration & elections. (WYDaily/ Julia Marsigliano)

As of Thursday, so far, 37,379 people used absentee ballots in this year’s elections: 10,314 are mail-in and 26,965 are in-person, Moorman said.

Compared to the 2016 presidential election, there were 7,401 absentee ballots as of Oct. 31 with 4,482 in person and 2,763 mail in ballots, she added.

“We did have some machines that unbeknownst to us were not able to accept some of the ballots at the time,” Moorman said when asked if there were any mishaps Election Day.

Because of the coronavirus, election officials were using “disinfecting spray” on the voting booths in between voters.

But if they were not properly dried, the ballots picked up the moisture which went into the machine, she said.

Moorman said they put the ballots in an “emergency ballot bin” and counted them at 7 p.m.

“Who knew that our PPE supplies is what was going to effect us,” she said. “But nobody got disenfranchised and all ballots were counted at the end of the day.”

As for write-in ballots, Moorman said they just processed the write-in’ and didn’t really look at the names, noting “there wasn’t anything out of the ordinary.”

She was not immediately available for further comment on Friday.

Williamsburg

The city saw 10,295 registered voters this year. Of those registered, 6,884 cast their ballots this year.  In 2016, the city had 11,976 registered voters and 7,654 actually voted, according to assistant registrar Haley Snapp.

There were 3,710 early votes, and of those, 1,777 were by mail.

In 2016, the registrar’s office received 351 mail-in ballots.

As for odd write-ins, Snapp said there were no unusual ones aside from, “the Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, and Jesus we see every election,” she wrote in an email.

York County

York County Registrar Walt Latham said as of Friday, the county is still tallying and receiving votes.

The numbers we requested from the registrar were not immediately available.

In the 2016 election 34,113 people voted in York County. According to Virginia Department of Elections as of 1 p.m. Friday, 38,347 voted in this year’s election.

The York County Registrar’s Office reported 49,034 people were registered to vote as of Election Day.

In 2016 the number of registered voters was 45,799.

Out of the 49,034 registered voters in the county, 28,877 voted early in person or applied for a mail-in ballot.

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