The Municipal Primary is on Tuesday, and polls are open on Election Day from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m.

In Carbon County, election director Jennifer Ketchledge said, “We have a total of 2,500 mail in ballots issued to date.”

Mail-ins will be counted on Tuesday.

Many positions are open on the ballot, which means write-ins could be a factor.

Ketchledge said the office will begin tallying and certifying write-ins on Friday when canvassing starts.

Results will be posted on the county website Tuesday night.

“The office had to make sure all new registrations, mail in and absentee applications were entered in to the state system,” said Ketchledge, who is new to the position. “Our employees also mailed the ballots, filing and made sure all the polls have everything necessary for Election Day to run smoothly.”

She said the advance preparation should make the process go smoother, but stressed “People should make sure they understand and know their registered party and what voting location they can vote at.”

Schuylkill County

Primary election preparations are rolling along smoothly in Schuylkill County, said elections chief Al Gricoski.

“We are on schedule and are confident that we will have a safe, accurate, and secure election on Tuesday,” he said.

“We are finalizing preparations for the primary election,

arranging for all necessary paperwork, ballots, and machines to be delivered to the judges of elections and polling sites throughout the county,” he said.

That’s no small task; Gricoski and his staff are busy.

This year, the Election Bureau sent out 5,173 mail-in ballots. That’s down from last year’s 6,260 ballots.

The ballots must be in to the election bureau by 8 p.m. Tuesday, and will start to be counted as soon as the office opens on Election Day. The tallies will begin to be posted on the county website, schuylkillcountypa.gov, after the polls close at 8 p.m. Because Schuylkill is a large, rural county, the numbers may not be posted until late that night.

The numbers of voters and mail-in ballots have dipped from last year’s primary.

The total number of people registered to vote in the primary election is 86,878, down from 88,093 last year.

This year, 48,608 people registered as Republicans. Last year, there were 48,313.

A total of 26,889 people registered as Democrats this year, down from 28,253 last year.

Lehigh County

As of Thursday morning, 11,042 of 21,000 mail-in ballots had been returned in Lehigh County, said Tim Benyo, Chief Clerk of the Lehigh County Election Board.

Benyo said they can’t start counting the ballots until 7 a.m. on Tuesday, and estimated they should be done by pre-midnight if all goes well.

As for how the county is handling write-ins, Benyo said there won’t be any votes on election night.

“There’s no form or registration that a candidate has to do, but it’s easy to tell if someone is writing a campaign, or if (for example) someone wrote in their spouse,” Benyo said. “They have to have enough write-ins to equal the amount of signatures needed for a petition, and then they have to be a top vote-getter.”

Benyo noted the results will be posted on the county’s website, lehighcounty.org, and that there will be room available for the media at the Lehigh County Government Center.

Benyo said election prep has gone as well as can be expected.

“Everything is on schedule; all our testing was done the beginning of last week, and delivery of equipment this week,” he said. “Everything is good; no fender-benders, which is always good with the delivery.

“Central scanning was tested this week, no problems there, nothing unexpected. Poll workers is always a fluid process. We’re in a good place.”

Benyo shared what else voters need to know.

“Voters have to make sure they’re registered in the party that they think they are,” he said. “Whitehall Township is the only municipality that has a question that any registered voter in Whitehall can vote on Tuesday regardless of their party.

“Other than that, it should be pretty normal.”

Monroe County

Monroe County is ready for the primary election on Tuesday. Sara Mae Silfies, the director of Elections/Voter Registration, said the trucks have arrived to pick up the voting machines and are now out delivering them.

“It’s quiet right now,” she said.

Silfies said the Election Office had 9,102 requests for mail-in ballots and they have received 5,513 back so far. She anticipates receiving some more today.

“We’ll be opening mail-in and absentee ballots in the morning,” she said.

Silfies had a couple reminders for voters. First time voters need to bring their identification with them to their voting location, and only Democrats and Republicans can vote in this election, because the parties are selecting who they want to go to the general election in November.

Chris Parker, Amy Miller and Kristine Porter contributed to this story.