Allegheny County's elections warehouse on Pittsburgh's North Side was buzzing Thursday as officials put the finishing touches on primary election preparation.
Jerry Tyskiewicz, Director of Administrative Service for Allegheny County, said about 120,000 people requested mail-in ballots ahead of the May 18 primary. As of Thursday afternoon, about half had been returned.
Mail-in ballots for Tuesday's primary must be received by the time the polls close at 8 p.m.
"We've made arrangements to pick up the mail, which is conveniently right across the street both in the morning and at 7 o'clock in the evening," Tyskiewicz said. "Even those late arrivers of people that are worried about us not getting the ballot, we will have a pick-up at 7 o'clock on Election Day."
The process for counting the mail-in ballots in Allegheny County is generally the same as it was in November.
The elections warehouse has separate and secure stations for opening, extracting, tabulating and then registering the votes.
Tyskiewicz said there are some minor improvements to streamline the process since November, but the ballot for the primary election is much larger and could be a potential hurdle.
"It's a 17-inch ballot, double-sided with a lot of candidates," he said. "That's going to be an additional challenge just to see how the scanners react to it, how the results take, which could take a little longer because the sticks have to be read to read all those races. We're going to have some hurdles. It's not going to be perfect, but it's certainly, hopefully going to be better than it was in November."
The county can begin opening the mail-in ballots on Election Day but cannot start counting them until the polls close.