BUTLER CO., Pa. — We’re just one week from Election Day and the deadline to apply for a mail-in ballot and to vote early drew long lines of people making sure their vote counts.

Allegheny County

Voters in Allegheny County waited for hours. Long lines of people wearing their masks stretched outside of the county office building.

“I didn’t expect it to be this long. I expected to come down here and come in and out,” said Alexis White of Penn Hills.

The lines extended onto the second floor of a nearby parking deck.

Allegheny County’s Election Department is posting historic mail-in ballot application numbers this election year.

More than 410,000 applications have been approved as of Oct. 27, and nearly 270,000 have been returned before the deadline.

Those numbers are expected to climb significantly by Wednesday with the rush of last-minute applications.

Voters said they’d wait hours again to be a part of this historic election, knowing the outcome could be decided right here in the Keystone State, possibly even in western Pennsylvania.

Allegheny Co. voters wait hours to get mail-in ballots ahead of deadline

Butler County

Residents in Butler County waited in line for hours to make sure they got their mail-in ballots ahead of the 5 p.m. deadline.

The line at the elections bureau filled the hallway and wound into the stairwell and out the door, as people waited up to two hours to ensure their votes would count.

One woman told Channel 11 she drove four hours to the facility and waited two more hours to cast her ballot.

“I requested a mail-in ballot in October, never got a status update. So I drove from Reston, Virginia, to vote ... so I drove in the middle of the night last night to come here to vote on my day off,” said Natalie Fiorica.

Concerns over mail-in ballots not coming in time were the main reason those lines were out the door.

Starting on Wednesday, Oct. 28, the county courthouse will have extended hours, as officials know people are going to continue to come there to vote.

On Election Day, polls are open from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. On Nov. 3, your mail-in ballot must be postmarked by 8 p.m. or returned to your county election’s office by 8 p.m.

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Cox Media Group