Long voting line delayed Fayette election results Tuesday; 7,200 still left to count
The long line at the Tates Creek library branch voting location caused later reporting of countywide vote results from Fayette County than some are used to, and there are still about 7,200 ballots that need to be counted.
There were about 185 people in line to vote at Tates Creek by the time the line was closed to more people at 6 p.m., and the last people at the location didn’t finish voting until about 8 p.m. By law, anyone who was in line by the 6 p.m. close time was guaranteed the right to vote.
The votes from the Tates Creek location weren’t delivered to the Fayette County Clerk’s Office until about 10 p.m., but once they were, final steps were finished quickly, clerk Don Blevins said.
“We have spoiled Fayette over the years because we are normally so fast,” Blevins said. “We are always totally dependent on when the (election) officers arrive, so if they move slow, we can only wait.”
Of the additional approximately 7,200 ballots that are not yet reflected in Fayette County’s results, about 3,000 were delayed because of a scanner that died, Blevins said. The clerk’s office was waiting Wednesday for a court order to allow them to break the election machine seals to retrieve the ballots fed into the equipment and re-scan them on a new machine.
The other 4,200 uncounted ballots are comprised of absentee ballots that were mailed or dropped in ballot boxes on Election Day, Blevins said.
Those ballots have left Lexington Urban County Council races undecided.
Absentee ballots had to be postmarked by Election Day and received by Friday to be counted, according to the state’s rules.
Blevins expects a few additional ballots will come in through Friday and that the office will be able to upload all the results they have by 5 p.m. that day.
This story was originally published November 4, 2020 at 2:37 PM.
