Monroe County faced a number of challenges related to Tuesday’s primary election.

Given the impact of the epidemic, mail-in and absentee ballots received this year for Monroe County was at a record high - over 17,000.

In-person voting was steady but not overly busy as it has been in previous years. Director of Elections and Voter Registration Sara May-Silfee said the office has its hands full with phone calls.

“We have been very busy with the phone; people that do not realize that if they are not registered as a Democrat or Republican, they cannot vote in the primary,” May-Silfee said.

Finding volunteers to work the polls was another challenge facing Monroe County due to the COVID-19 crisis.

“A lot of our elderly poll workers decided not to do it. We were still getting poll workers last night, some polls are very short-staffed.”

Certain polling sites were consolidated with other locations in order to accommodate the shortage of volunteers.

May-Silfee, who has held the position since 2006, says she’s never experienced such a hectic primary in her entire career.

“We’ve got new laws, we have an epidemic, we have to now plan an election in the middle of an epidemic. Then we had a shutdown four weeks before, we had nobody working - it’s been rough.”

The health and safety of volunteers also was an unprecedented concern for May-Silfee.

“We also have to plan to protect our poll workers at the polls. A lot of money was spent on this election.

“I have to give our poll workers a lot of credit. They are working an election, they have no training because we couldn’t hold training as usual. It’s their first time ever working these machines for some of these volunteers. They are doing a great job.”