Carbon County’s unofficial election results show that local voters heavily favored President Donald J. Trump.

The county released its election results Thursday afternoon after completing its count of the 9,160 mail-in and absentee ballots.

President Donald J. Trump received nearly twice as many votes as his Democratic challenger, Joe Biden. Trump received 21,595 votes in Carbon. Biden received 10,989.

Between in-person and mail-in ballots, voter turnout was 70 percent, the highest of any election in the last decade.

“At the end of the day, we made sure every voter had a chance to cast their vote in Carbon County, and that is a success,” said County Commissioner Chris Lukasevich.

The majority of voters decided to vote in person, and most of them voted for Trump. Trump received 18,221 in-person votes in the county to Biden’s 5,050.

Mail-in voters from Carbon County preferred Biden. Trump received 2,456 mail-in votes in Carbon, while Biden received 5,223.

On Wednesday, the county elections office had only scanned about 10 percent of the mail-in ballots. But they completed much of the pre-canvassing process, which enabled them to count many more ballots on Thursday.

“Yesterday we told you we didn’t think we’d get done today, thought we’d have to go into tomorrow - but the staff, everybody that worked here, worked long hard hours,” said Commissioner Wayne Nothstein.

Pre-canvassing involves checking for signatures, recording the mail ballot as received in a state database, and opening the two envelopes. The county purchased an envelope-slicing machine which opened 400 envelopes per minute - which sped up the pre-canvassing process.

Director of Elections Lisa Dart said some people who voted in person have tried looking up their names on the state database - which is only for mail-in and absentee votes.

“It states it is a mail-in or absentee tracker,” Dart said.

The county did not publish any results prior to completing its count of mail-in ballots. Lukasevich said the county decided to have the state’s website, electionreturns.pa.gov, be the sole source of election results as they were counted. That website shows results statewide or by county.

Today, the county planned to begin the process of canvassing votes so it can certify its official results. There are still 282 provisional ballots which must be verified before they are counted. Provisional ballots were given to some voters who received a mail ballot but showed up at the polls. Their provisional ballots will be counted once it’s verified that they didn’t submit a ballot by mail.

“With all of the political mail, unfortunately a lot of people unknowingly destroyed their ballot,” Nothstein said.

Other races

Republican candidates had the majority of Carbon County voters in all other races on the ballot Tuesday. Since the last presidential election in 2016, Republicans have taken an advantage in voter registration among Carbon County voters.

Congressman Dan Meuser and state Rep. Jerry Knowles had sizable leads among the Carbon residents voting in their races. State Rep. Doyle Heffley was unopposed.

Meuser had 21,829 votes to 10,560 for Democratic challenger Gary Wegman. Knowles led Taylor Picone, 929 to 599. Heffley received 27,815 votes and there were 902 write-ins.

Republican candidates for attorney general, auditor general and state treasurer also received more votes in Carbon County than their Democratic opponents.

Heather Heidelbaugh led incumbent Attorney General Josh Shapiro 19,537 to 12,010.

Timothy Defoor led Nina Ahmad in the auditor general race, 20,383 to 10,346.

Stacy L. Garrity led state Treasurer Joe Torsella 20,395-10,805.