BUFFALO, N.Y. — Election Day has come and gone, and depending on how you view the results, it was either a good day or a disappointing one.
Of course, this was the first Election Day in New York State with early voting, so how did things go in terms of local turnout?
For better or for worse, we say goodbye to those campaign ads and stump speeches, that is, until the 2020 elections ramp up.
But for you political junkies out there, Election Day 2019 saw higher turnout across Erie County than four years ago.
And early voting helped boost turnout even higher.
"I just think there's a lot of energy out there in general for politics right now in government. One way or the other, people are being moved to get out the vote, and I think you saw that in a little bump in the results," Democratic Erie County Elections Commissioner Jeremy Zellner said.
Four years ago, when former Assembly Member Ray Walter challenged Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz, 26 percent of the electorate voted.
On Election Day, there was 34 percent turnout, but that doesn't include absentee ballots.
Early voting pushed overall turnout, so far, to 38 percent.
"We were very pleased with the results of early voting, it went off pretty much without a hitch," Republican elections commissioner Ralph Mohr said.
But there was a bit of a delay in the posting of early voting results, which was supposed to be done online shortly after 9 p.m. Tuesday, after polls closed.
"We had anticipated it would take approximately 20 minutes to download the data and produce it onto the web. It took 40, " Mohr said. "We wanted to make sure we went very slow to make sure that they were accurately read."
So are there any lessons learned?
Some voters told us early voting locations were too small.
In 2020, the Board of Elections will look at larger early voting locations.
"If there are suggestions if once we look at these sites if there are other places for us to move them to we will certainly be open to it," Zellner said.
The 2020 primary is in June.
Both the primary and the November general election will offer early voting.
Erie County had one of the highest early voting turnouts in the state.
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