Photo by Howard Owens.
Tuesday began early for Democratic Election Commissioner Lorie Longhany, who got up around 3 a.m. in anticipation of a busy Election Day, she says.
Longhany monitored the voting process and supervised 60 election workers throughout Genesee County. At just a few minutes before midnight, votes were still being tallied as exhausted workers looked forward to the end.
“For us, we’re very glad it is almost over,” Longhany said at 11:50 p.m. “Our staff worked very hard, especially the last month preparing for early voting and immediately rolling into Election Day.”
Presidential elections always draw the most people out to the polls, officials have said, and numbers have backed up that belief with early voting and on Election Day for candidates Kamala Harris and Donald Trump.
For nine days preceding the big day, there was early voting, which brought in a total of 7,233 people to cast their votes for local and national races. The first day of early voting drew a record-breaking number of 1,143 people to the ARC in Batavia, she said, and there were more than 22,000 votes cast on Election Day in Genesee County. There are 37,670 active registered voters in Genesee County, putting voter turnout at 77.6%
True to this county's deep Republican roots, the numbers panned out accordingly for the presidential, congressional, and Byron clerk and town council races.
Joseph Graff was the lone candidate running for Genesee County Sheriff on the Republican and Conservative tickets and is the Sheriff-elect to fill a vacancy left by Sheriff William Sheron, who will be retiring from the position at the end of this year. Graff received 22,300 votes, and there were 91 write-ins.
Kevin Andrews, who ran unopposed on the Republican and Conservative lines to fill the spot left by former treasurer Scott German, who is also retiring at year's end, will be the Genesee County treasurer. Andrews received 21,939 votes, and there were 59 write-ins.
German will take up a new role in January as the Republican election commissioner to fill a gap left by the retiring Richard Siebert. However, this was an appointed position by the county Legislature and not on the ballot.
David Wagenhauser, a Democratic challenger to incumbent Republican Congresswoman Claudia Tenney for the NY-24 territory, lost by a vote of 7,531 to 18,921.
Donald Trump came out ahead of Kamala Harris for president of the United States with double the votes, 18,580 to 9,098, and 241 write-in votes.
Despite the high number of people processed, everything went well, from setup to the final day for voting, Longhany said. Voters were pleasant, and poll workers and techs did “an outstanding job.”
She said there were no issues with voters on Tuesday, and all poll sites had steady traffic throughout the day. They kept coming to cast their decisions right up to closing time at 9 p.m. Final, unofficial numbers were posted online at the Board of Elections by 2 a.m.
Photo by Howard Owens.
Photo by Howard Owens.
