In light of technical mistakes made during the election Lackawanna County officials want to make sure the results of this month's election are accurate so a recount began Wednesday.

Election officials said the whole process will take a few days and they started bright and early in an effort to make sure the election results they came up with are correct.

For the first time since election night, the ballots come out of the boxes and once again, through a machine.

All 52,000 ballots from Lackawanna County will pass through when all is said and done, as ordered last week by the county board of elections because malfunctions were discovered in several machines on election night.

In two races, some straight party Republican and Democratic votes never showed up.

"I think the board in its wisdom decided that everyone who was getting straight party votes, that those ballots were being assigned to them. So it's accomplishing a lot actually," said Director of Elections Maryann Spellman Young.

The voting machine company is paying for the machine recount. It drew a little bit of an audience, from the public and from candidates whose races are being recounted.

Archbald Mayor Edward Fairbrother's race will be recounted by hand. "This is just going to revalidate the confidence people should have in the whole process. Not only in elected officials, but in the process of electing them," Fairbrother said.

While the mistakes were unsettling for some, the ability to fix the problem was reassuring for others.

"I'm so pleased we have the paper ballots because the machines we had prior to this were electronic and there's no paper trail," said Republican Party chairman Paul Catalano.

Many people cited the corruption in Luzerne County as a good reason to restore confidence in Lackawanna County's election system

"I think the people deserve to know that when they go to the polls the vote they cast is the vote that's going to be counted," said Democratic Party chairman Harry McGrath.

Machine recounts are being done in counties across the state right now because of a close state superior court race.

Manual recounts of some races in Lackawanna County will begin Thursday. Officials said that could take a few days.