Northampton County expects same night election results; Lehigh County anticipates next-day returns

Officials say they are staffed, prepped and ready to issue results as quickly as possible.

By Tyler Pratt

May 13, 2021

Northampton County Executive Lamont McClure says barring mechanical errors, he expects Northampton County election returns by 11 p.m. on May 18, three hours after the polls close.

“We’re getting really good in Northampton County at conducting safe, legal, accurate, and now I’m going to add efficient, elections too,” McClure says. 

Northampton suffered a major election mishap in 2019, which was tied to the voting machines. McClure says the county has made improvements. 

“We realized that we were never going to do that again. We had our stress test in 2019 and that’s why we did things so well in 2020 with respect to our election. We went out and we bought three high speed scanners,” McClure says. 

The County three high speed letter openers, as well, all to the tune of about $100,000. 

McClure says having speedy and accurate election results can help fight misinformation.

“Because the longer it takes these results to come, the conspiracy theorists out there then grab on to every day there is a delay,” he says. 

Lehigh County’s election head says it may take until Wednesday. Tim Benyo says the number of write-in campaigns in the boroughs can slow things down.

“To get those write-ins done on Tuesday night, that can’t happen. I’m not going to say that I’m done counting if I still have votes out there that need to be counted,” Benyo says.

Voters who still have their mail-in ballots need to be in by 8 p.m. on primary election day. Officials in both counties say for people casting their ballots in person, poll workers will have personal protective equipment and masks will be required.

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