WESTMORELAND COUNTY, Pa. — Westmoreland County voters slowly turned out for the Pennsylvania primaries at the precinct in Jeannette Tuesday.
Voters had similar reasons for showing up.
”I had to because I’m tired of the people running for office not doing what they’re supposed to do,” Donald Brown, of Jeannette, said.
”I think your opinion matters and you need to voice your opinion,” voter Anna Garasich said.
Anna Garasich cast her vote by noon Tuesday.
She said she made it a point to vote today because the U.S. senate race mattered to her.
”It’s not anything about race, color, creed or anything, everybody’s important,” Garasich said.
The county elections bureau expected a countywide turnout of about 32%.Precincts are fully staffed, in part, due to a hefty pay increase incentive, and despite some late COVID cancellations.
”It’s made it more attractive of a position. So, we have a lineup of people waiting to be poll workers and judges, so we were calling those in the last couple days to have them lined up,” interim elections bureau director Gregory McCloskey said.
Over 25,300 mail-in ballots were sent out to Westmoreland voters and 18,645 were returned, as of noon Tuesday.
The county consolidated to one drop box this election cycle.
”All in all, it’s serving the purpose it was supposed to. If you remember last election, we had 1,239 ballots dropped off in the drop box through the election, so we’re on pace to be close to 1,000 ballots being dropped off in the drop box,” said McCloskey.
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