Polling Places Busy in State College as Election Day Gets Underway

By Callaway Turner | Centre County Report

All eyes are on Pennsylvania today as residents head out for in-person voting in the 2020 general election.

Polls opened at 7 a.m. but look a bit different because of the pandemic.

In Centre County, more than 31,000 people have already cast mail-in ballots.

‘I think the biggest difference here is that those mail-in ballots are more accessible. More people are able to fill those out,’ said Jordan Emele, judge of elections for precinct 29 in State College. ‘Then of course there’s the global pandemic, which is making us wear face masks and have our own pens and everything else that’s happening today.’

Poll workers have their temperatures checked every three hours and avoid close interaction with voters. Ballots are placed directly into the ballot scanner when the voter is finished.

Voters will not be turned away. Their temperatures will be checked when entering the polling place and if a voter is found with a fever a separate table will be placed for them to vote and the table will be sanitized.

Just five minutes after the polls opened this morning there were already 70 people at precinct 29, the State College Municipal Building

‘We woke up at 6 o’clock. We started walking at 6:15, got here by 6:20 and we were the second ones in line. I was kind of expecting a bigger line,’ voter Shay Baxter said outside Precinct 29 at the State College Municipal Building. 

Poll workers said it could take up to 30 minutes to move someone through the line.

Mail-in votes, meanwhile, can be delivered directly to one of eight secure drop boxes around the county until 8 p.m.. Mail ballot processing continues all day at the Penn Stater Hotel.

Polls are open until 8 p.m.