BUFFALO, N.Y. — Election Day has arrived. This year, the focus is on the local races. Today's results will shape the next four years for Western New York.
So far, 29,106 people in Erie County have cast their ballot as of 10 a.m.
So if you count absentee votes, early voting and today's votes there are 72,298 ballots filled out. Right now, 11% of those who registered to vote have voted so far. Four years ago, around 34% came out to vote.
The Erie County Board of Elections is able to track voter turnout all day long with a new piece of technology: electronic poll books. They were installed at polling centers across Erie County on Election Day and overall the rollout has been smooth with only a few hiccups on Election Day morning.
"Anytime you introduce a new piece of technology it gets the inspectors a little nervous but they've really taken to it. They like it a lot better than the big books that we used to have because its just a simple tablet that they can check folks in. We didn't see many issues this morning and yesterday our staff's been working incredibly hard since Sunday after we closed early voting. And then we were able to deploy all the books yesterday during the whole day," Commissioner Jeremy Zellner said.
Another update on voter turnout from the Board of Elections will come out at 2 p.m. on Election Day. Remember, polls close at 9 p.m.