President Cambria county commissioner Scott Hunt and county solicitor Ron Repak tell me they are prioritizing progress in tallying votes for the state house’s 72nd district. He assured me officials are making sure the ballots for this district are being counted as soon and accurately as possible.
This reinforced by the reported doubling in team sizes along with help from volunteers. Repak tells me people have been working day and night to get votes processed.
“Were doing very well process-wise. We have it down to what I would call an absolute process. Step 1, 2, 3.”
Officials tell me that hand counting on Tuesday was taking too long.
They say this is why they switched to having a republican and democrat duplicate ballots to a type of paper that can run through ballot machines.
They tell me this would also help officials recount the ballots more efficiently, if a recount is ordered.
“The other thing that’s really nice is that we have poll watchers there, that are verifying everything that we are doing. Including attorneys for the candidates themselves, which we have been speaking with the entire time.”
As of Thursday night, officials including the county solicitor tell me they don’t have an exact estimate yet to when processing every ballot will be completed.