Bucks County saw larger-than-normal turnout for the midterm election, officials said.
Although final turnout numbers will not be available for several weeks, preliminary tallies show at least 64.7 of the county’s 454,301 registered voters participated in Tuesday’s election, officials said.
This November’s voter participation beat previous year’s midterm election turnout, which saw a high of 57 percent in 2006 and a low of 46.3 percent in 2014.
While the numbers were high for a non-presidential election year, they did not exceed turnout for recent presidential elections. In those election years, November turnout regularly exceeds 70 percent.
As NewtownPANow.com reported on Friday, work to count final ballots and determine provisional ballot outcomes continued throughout the week and will for the next several days.
As of mid-October, there were 194,656 registered Democrats and 184,711 registered Republicans throughout Bucks County. There were also 46,386 who marked no party affiliation and 28,151 registered with third parties.
The Bucks County Commissioners said there were “minimal problems” reported at a few polling places. There were a few issues with voting machines and longer-than-usual lines in some districts.
“With 65 percent turnout, that’s going to happen sometimes,” Bucks County Chief Operating Officer Brian Hessenthaler said. “We’re not downplaying that, it’s just a fact. We’ll work on that to see if there’s anything we can do, going forward, to address that issue.”
Outside of a poling place in Central Bucks County, a judge issued an order for handmade signs to be removed because they did not meet state regulations.
Hessenthaler thanked county staff for their hard working during the election.
