POTTSVILLE, Pa. — On this momentous and historic day, people could be seen waiting in lines to cast their votes all across the country, including here in Pottsville, where a line formed bright and early.
"It began around 7 a.m.," said Matt Santai, an election official. "The line was all the way to the door about 30 feet coming into the registered poll. It was heavy this morning, but it seemed like it drifted off around lunchtime."
"Overall, around the county, it seems like we have good participation from what we've heard from the poll workers," Albert Gricoski, Schuylkill County Board of Elections director, said.
The county election bureau couldn't say definitively if voter participation this year was higher than in previous years, but across the country, those figures were up in many places. At a polling center at the county government human services complex along North Centre Street, people of all ages came to cast votes or drop off their ballots, feeling that this election was especially important to participate in.
"This will be my first time being able to vote, so I feel that responsibility," Zachary White of Shenandoah said. "It was a lot more simpler than I thought when I got around to filling everything around it. I've been thinking about this ever since March when COVID started. That's when I started realizing the problems in our country."
Officials with the election bureau tell Newswatch 16 that other than a few machines jamming from time to time, there have been very few issues across the county on this Election Day.