Claire Certo fills out her primary election ballot at the Girl Scouts of Western New York polling station on Tuesday. Voter turnout was lower at polling sites due to increased use of mail-in ballots. P-J photo by Jay Young

Local voters looking to cast their ballots in Tuesday’s primary election had the opportunity to do so in person, thanks to the dedicated efforts of polling station workers and the Chautauqua County Board of Elections.

While some areas of the state were operating significantly fewer in-person polling sites Chautauqua County did not close any sites due to COVID-19.

“All the poll sites opened this morning on time as expected. It has been extremely slow, as expected, because we had so many people vote absentee as we had hoped for,” said Norman Green, county Democratic election commissioner. “The poll workers that show up are people that we depend on and people that, even though there is a level of risk which we’ve tried to limit, they come forward. These are dedicated individuals that we depend on time after time after time to deliver democracy in Chautauqua County. They do it whether it is snowing, whether it is raining, or it is a pandemic.”

Green and others at the county Board of Elections have had to think on their feet over the last several months while preparing for the primary. In a small window of time, county officials had to deal with plans that vacillated between holding the primary in April, to not holding the primary at all, to ultimately preparing for in-person voting on Tuesday.

“The timeframe went a little differently. First it looked like we weren’t going to have a primary at all, then our entire calendar got collapsed,” Green said. “Suddenly the primary gets canceled and we were scrambling, not scrambling, then scrambling again. We were running around working with emergency services, particularly, and we were ordering from vendors all the materials that were needed to have a COVID-19 election. That is a lot of cleaning materials, a lot of masks, a lot of gloves and a lot of instructions. That happened in a very compact period of time.”

Those materials were in use on site at polling stations like the Girl Scouts of Western New York building on Horton Road.

“We had a pretty good turnout for absentee ballots, so we weren’t expecting a huge turnout to begin with for the brick and mortar voting at the poll sites,” said Chelsea Babcock, Chautauqua County Board of Elections area director. “This is about, more or less, what we have been expecting for the brick and mortar poll sites. A lot of (the planning) has been evolving with everything that we have been asked to do. Making sure that the polls are set up correctly, everything is going to be safe and sanitary for voters. We obviously want to limit as much risk as we possible can, it makes it difficult with everything that we have going on, but we have many many procedures in place right now. Sanitizing, making sure voters are kept six feet apart from each other to ensure the best safety for not only our voters, but also for our employees for the board of elections.”

While there has been an expected increase in absentee ballot voting, having in-person polls in operation still does give voters a reliable option to cast their ballots.

Babcock noted that local poll workers had been following the lead of state officials in encouraging voters to cast their ballots by mail if possible, in order to reduce the risk of COVID-19 transmission.

“I’ve never really had any issue with lines or much of any issues voting. I’ve been voting in this spot for years and years now,” voter Claire Certo said. “Whenever I come in it is a really quick and simple situation. They mentioned we’re going to sanitize your pen, that type of thing. In terms of it being more difficult to vote, I didn’t notice any issues with that at all.”

Certo said she had considered voting via absentee ballot, which she has done in the past, but that the convenience of visiting her usual polling station won out in the end.

“I think initially, maybe a month or two ago I was like ‘Oh I’ll definitely vote absentee’. I don’t have any issues with that, I have done it in the past,” Certo said. “I didn’t call beforehand, but I wasn’t under the assumption that they would have closed this spot. It’s generally pretty quick, compared to a place in downtown Jamestown.”

According to the Associated Press, 1.8 million people requested absentee ballots by mid-June, and Buffalo was operating with 40% fewer polling stations that normal for this primary election. Madison County in central New York, was operating with one polling site instead of its normal 52.