Registered voters throughout the county can cast ballots for state and local candidates from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. Tuesday.

Aaron Sheasley, director of the county Bureau of Elections, said he spent Monday ensuring that all systems and personnel are prepared for the election, which will determine who fills supervisor, borough council, mayor, school board and other local and statewide seats.

“We're making sure everyone understands their assignments,” Sheasley said. “It's a rehearsal in the sense of making sure everyone is prepared to do things as professionally and efficiently as possible.”

He said extra poll workers were trained in case of COVID-19-related absences, and a few have been deployed.

Regarding turnout, Sheasley said it was impossible to know if all those who do not usually vote or who had never voted until the 2020 presidential election would return to the polls for local elections.

Normally, 25% to 30% of registered voters in the county turn out for a local election.

Election directors across the state have no idea what to expect regarding voter turnout, Sheasley said.

“Given the climate we're in and given that a year ago we had the most participated-in election in American history, there really aren't any models that apply to this,” he said.

He said the judicial candidates on the ballot could bring people out, as will school board races in hotly contested districts, but turnout also could return to the normal rate.

Sheasley said he has enough ballots to cover every registered voter in the county.

Sheasley said about 2,000 more requests for mail-in ballots have arrived at the bureau since the primary election.

He said in the past few weeks, the number of mail-in ballots he has received at the bureau in one day has ranged from 500 to 3,000.

A few differences exist in today's election versus the presidential election, Sheasley said.

No judicial decisions or lawsuits will interrupt the mail-in ballot process as it did in the 2020 presidential election, and only military absentee ballots will be counted after 8 p.m. Tuesday, Sheasley said.

He explained that in the 2020 general election, the state Supreme Court allowed three extra days for the postal service to deliver ballots postmarked by 8 p.m. on Election Day.

That ruling is not in effect for this election, he said.

The only ballots that can be accepted after Election Day are military ballots, which the law allows to arrive for up to one week after the election, Sheasley said.

Those who received a mail-in ballot, but did not return it, can bring the ballot and envelope to their polling place and surrender it to the judge of elections, who will reject the ballot in the voter's presence.

The voter can then vote at the precinct.

Those who do not take the correct components to the polling place will be given a provisional ballot when they arrive at the precinct, Sheasley said.

Voters who use provisional ballots will be given a bar-coded receipt when they vote that they can use to ensure their vote was recorded by viewing the Pennsylvania Department of State website in seven to 10 days.

Regarding precincts, only three polling locations have been changed since the primary election, and all registered voters in those precincts have been notified of the changes by mail per state law, he said.

Mercer Township, Butler Township-1 and Butler City-1 are the three precincts where the polling locations have changed, Sheasley said.

He expects all ballots to be counted in the hours after the polling places close.

“Everything seems to be going according to plan,” Sheasley said.