Carbon County’s mail-in and absentee ballot requests for the upcoming primary has topped 6,000, officials said.

On Thursday, Commissioner Chris Lukasevich announced that the elections bureau has received 6,027 mail-in and absentee ballot requests.

As of Friday morning, that number increased to 6,317, according to Lisa Dart, director of elections.

The number of mail-in and absentee ballots requests represent about 39 percent of the total number of votes expected to be cast during the upcoming primary on June 2 based on previous elections. In the 2016 presidential primary, 16,131 votes were cast.

Dart said that there are 37,552 registered voters who are eligible to vote in this election.

She added that of the number of applications for mail-in and absentee ballots, approximately 2,547 have been filled out and returned to her department. Those filled-in ballots are secured until Election Day, when they will be opened, scanned in and recorded.

People wishing to apply for a mail-in or absentee ballot can still do so, but time is running out.

All completed applications for registered voters wishing to cast their vote by mail-in or absentee ballot must have it to the county election office by 5 p.m. on May 26. The deadline to return these ballots to the election office, located at 76 Susquehanna St., Jim Thorpe, is by 8 p.m. on June 2.

As a reminder, if you apply for a mail-in or absentee ballot, you cannot go to a precinct to cast a vote and cannot return the ballot to your precinct.

To apply for a ballot, you must also be registered to vote, and have either a valid driver’s license or PennDOT ID number and can apply online at www.pavoterservices.pa.gov.

In a related election matter, Carbon County has created a polling location finder to assist voters affected by the temporary consolidation of polling precincts.

The application, which utilizes an online search function through the county GIS mapping department, allows voters to put in an address to search for the precinct they will be voting at this election.

To use this web application, visit https://bit.ly/3c19p3y or the Carbon County Geographical Information System website at http://carbongis.maps.arcgis.com and click on Carbon County Polling Locator.