Local counties prepare for Election Day with increased security, extra hands to count votes

WASHINGTON COUNTY, Pa. — On Thursday night, candidates race around the battleground states as local counties are racing to get ready for the Election Day rush.

“There is a lot of emotion in this election and we’ve heard from people their concerns is there going to be any security issues and we don’t have any intelligence right now that there is going to be any security issues,” said Nick Sherman who’s a Washington County Commissioner.

That isn’t stopping Washington County from being prepared and putting state election money towards extra security.

“We hired a local security company RIP Security. Right now we have about 180 polling locations and only 50 constables so we hired another 50 private security guards to make sure there is security on the interior and exterior of polling locations in Washington County,” Sherman said.

Security is top of mind for most county leaders. In Butler County, constables went through extra training for peacekeeping at the polls this year and Beaver County is beefing up patrols on the roads.

“Our Sheriff’s Department is going to put more deputies out on the road than we normally have to be safe in case there is anything local law enforcement need. We are going to split the counties up in four and have two cars in each quadrant while the polls are open,” said Daniel Camp, a Beaver County Commissioner.

While people are voting, back at each county’s election headquarters, extra county workers will be opening those mail in ballots to get them counted.

Washington County plans to shut down operations at 11 p.m. and have deputies secure all ballots until they resume counting in the morning while Butler and Beaver plan to go through the night until everything is counted.

“Our election office will work until every ballot is counted downstairs here at the courthouse we do plan to have those counted before the night ends. Last presidential election we stopped at 3 a.m. and continued at 7, but we do plan to have it all done because of the amount of workers we have helping in the morning shift,” Camp said.

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