County Board of Elections counting 2,550 absentee, affidavit ballots today
ALBION – The Orleans County Board of Elections will count 2,550 absentee and affidavit ballots today, beginning at 8:30 a.m. The BOE typically counts those ballots a week after an election.
There are no cliffhanger elections locally after the in-person vote on Nov. 3 and with early voting.
Donald Trump received 71.4 percent of the in-person vote in Orleans County or 11,173 or the 15,649 votes cast for president. Joe Biden received 26.1 percent or 4,082 votes in Orleans. Will Trump’s margin of support in Orleans drop below 70 percent after the absentees and affidavits are counted today?
The absentees were mailed in and needed to be postmarked by Nov. 3. The affidavits or provisional ballots are for people who believe they are eligible to vote but cannot submit a regular ballot because elections workers don’t have their information. Of the 2,550 ballots to be counted today, nearly all of them are absentees. There were 2,362 received by the BOE by Nov. 3 with more time for ballots to be mailed in as long as they were postmarked by Election Day.
The votes today will provide more numbers in for the 27th Congressional with Chris Jacobs, who is ahead of Nate McMurray and Duane Whitmer. Jacobs declared victory on Tuesday night after the in-person votes were announced in the eight-county district.
Other local races include Nadine Hanlon and Diane Shampine for county clerk. Hanlon has an insurmountable lead, 8,900 to 4,474.
The Murray highway superintendent also is an open position and Dirk Lammes has a big lead over James DeFilipps. Lammes has 1,076 votes under the Republican and Conservative lines, while DeFilipps has 674 under the Independence line and the independent “Jimmy D for Highway” party.
