Missoula Election Central – All Systems ‘Go’ – All Night Long
Elections Administrator Rebecca Connors began her day at about 4:00 a.m. on Tuesday, and plans to be going strong through about 6:00 a.m. on Wednesday.
Connors said, just after the first summary report was handed out to media and observers at the Missoula County Fairgrounds, that all systems had been operating smoothly most of the day.
"It was really, really busy, but we came out on top," Connors said. "We had over 2,000 people here at the fairgrounds today for a variety of different reasons, and we were able to have a maximum wait time of between 40 and 45 minutes. It took our Election Advisory Committee and our Late Registration Committee from 2014 to really help us reach this point."
Connors said the number of people who waited till the last minute to register to vote was well over 1,500 this year.
"I don't know new registration numbers, but we probably assisted more than 1,600 people with the same-day registration process, whether they were new to this county or moved from another county, or had moved within Missoula County," she said. "We've had this system in place since 2014 and we've been refining the process during the primary and we really tested it this year with the Presidential election, and it worked."
County Administrator Ann Hughes confirmed that 84 percent of all absentee ballots sent out to Missoula voters were returned for this election.