The Lycoming County Elections Office is bustling with deadlines and the approaching election | News, Sports, Vacancies

More than 12,000 county residents received their ballots for the presidential election in less than two weeks. Of that number, about 8,000 returned their ballots.

“These are not exactly 2020 numbers, but we have just under a week to get there.” said Forrest Lehman, the county’s director of voter services.

“What’s changed a lot this time is that most of those numbers were spread out over that month in terms of office traffic,” – said Lehman.

“It was a really big problem because in 2020 we sent out 13,000 people, but 10 (thousand) of them left just 30 days before the election. The remaining 3,000 occurred within a month.” – said Lehman.

This year, he said, was “completely different” his office sent out 65,000 and left the rest in the office.

“I send them out every day. People lined up in the hallway… My staff there was amazing. They worked 10-11 hours a day.” – he said.

The room outside the Voter Services office on the first floor of Third Street Plaza indicates the reality of the situation: On one side there are chairs for those waiting to apply to vote by mail.

Applications for absentee or absentee ballots must be received at the elections office by 5:00 pm today, and a completed ballot must be received at the elections office by 8:00 pm on November 5th. A postmark with the date and time is not enough, according to Voter Services.

Commissioner Chairman Scott Metzger noted that he had heard on the news that the number of mail-in ballots in the country was approaching 20 million, and “growing every day.”

The voting office posted a message on its website saying the office was experiencing heavy traffic every day.

“Anyone attempting to visit Voter Services in person to request a mail-in ballot should allow 30-45 minutes to complete the process. Queues may be longer during peak periods.” the notice says.

Speaking about the issue of voting by mail, Lehman said: “Here in Pennsylvania, it’s still an adjustment, preparing for it, because we don’t have early in-person voting… a lot of people come in and we ask them to apply for mail-in ballots, put them in all these envelopes, and this requires a lot of administrative effort.”

“My employees handle this very well, but it was not easy because… we have a small staff,” he said, adding that county employees from other departments are also helping.

Another election-related item approved by the commissioners was a change order to H&P Construction in the amount of $16,730 to construct an ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) polling station at the Clinton Township Volunteer Fire Company. Lehman noted that the fire company precinct is used for voting at two locations.