Election 2022: Still counting ballots in Douglas County

OMAHA, Neb. (WOWT) - It is the day after the midterms and things have calmed down a bit at the Douglas County Election Commissioner’s Office.

The election may be over but Douglas County officials are still counting ballots.

Finally, the election commissioner’s office is quiet and the staff has a chance to catch their breath. After dealing with tens of thousands of voters and ballots officials say around 99,000 people voted in person on Election Day and 98,500 voted early.

Douglas County Election Commissioner Brian Kruse says there are still votes to be counted.

“Between ballots that were turned in on Election Day to our drop boxes and our provisional ballots we have somewhere in the neighborhood between 12,000 and 15,000 ballots were estimating, still need to be counted between this Friday and then Monday the 21st,” Kruse said.

Kruse says anything can happen but right now he doesn’t see the threat of a recount in almost any of the races.

“LD 20 Stu Dornan John Fredrickson is probably the one we’re watching the most it’s over a hundred votes difference now but we’ll see when we count those votes what might happen but I know one things for sure, we don’t have any races that are three votes like we’ve had in the past or 19 or anything like that,” Kruse said.

There is still a lot of work to be done and Kruse reminds voters that the results they’re looking at today, are all unofficial.

“We go through and go through an extensive canvass or an audit process, just to look at every precinct by precinct to make sure things worked the way we’re supposed to work and we will send our official results to the secretary of states office on that Wednesday before Thanksgiving. That Wednesday before Thanksgiving we’ll sign off on it and the election will be official,” Kruse said.

Kruse says the election process in Douglas County ran smoothly, there were the normal Election Day issues but Kruse says nothing happened that impeded voters from casting their ballots.

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