Less than a month away from this presidential election cycle, county representatives are putting in the extra hours.

In updated voter registration data released Monday, Oct. 7, 22,888 mail-in and absentee applications have been processed in the county. According to county Commissioner Kevin Boozel, about 60% of those ballots have been processed or mailed out since Oct. 1.

“We are working overtime to get all the ballots out,” he said. “I feel like we are on track. Some counties may have used a service, but I understand they had more errors than we have doing it in-house.”

As of Monday, there are 1,316 unprocessed paper applications in addition to 1,395 unprocessed electronic applications.

The last day to register to vote in the state is Oct. 21. The deadline to request a mail-in or absentee ballot is Oct. 29 at 5 p.m. All ballots must be returned on Nov. 5 by 8 p.m.

One of the most crucial parts of the process is to double-check and make sure all requirements are met when mailing back those ballots.

“I think the most important thing is getting people actually out to vote and making sure they follow all the directions carefully,” said commissioners chairwoman Leslie Osche. “Given all of the various court case results, I think the message to the mail-in voters now is please make sure you sign, date and put it in the processing envelopment so we have the least number of problems on Election Day.”

Following multiple campaign stops from prominent Republicans and Democrats throughout western Pennsylvania and a well-attended rally for former President Donald Trump on Saturday, Oct. 5, Osche said she is seeing an uptick in enthusiasm to register.

“I think that people over the last couple of days, what I have witnessed, is people charged up and excited now about going out to encourage more people to register and vote,” she said. “Certainly Elon Musk’s call-to-task was taken seriously.”

County officials have also taken every necessary precaution when it comes to security as required under state voting laws. The pre-election logic and accuracy testing portion of the process recently concluded and went well, according to Boozel.

“We kicked off the logic and analytic process, along with chairs from the perspective parties, to observe the testing and approval of accuracy that are signed off by two judges of elections from both parties,” he said. “Once certified, they (the ballots) are sealed and secured until they are deployed for elections.”