Schuylkill County Elections chief Albert L. Gricoski has seen about 1,000 more voter registrations since the May Primary election.

“There seems to be an interest in this election, and I’m glad to see that,” he said.

As Gricoski and his staff hustle to make sure everything is ready to go on General Election day, Nov. 8, he has a lot to keep track of.

So far, he’s received more than 6,000 mail-in ballots.

Typically, the bureau receives an “average of about 5,800, but we sent out a little more this time, so I was anticipating right around there, that we’d receive about this many returns.”

The increase in registrations was pretty evenly split between Republicans and Democrats, he said, noting that Schuylkill is heavily Republican.

As the ballots come in, his office routinely sets aside those that are not properly completed with dates and signatures.

Gricoski spoke of the continuing litigation on how mail-in ballots are to be handled.

“We were going that route to begin with,” he said. “We were segregating ours anyway. If somebody didn’t sign or date their ballot, they’re put to one side while we wait for the litigation to tell us what direction to go.

“That could change any day,” he said, referring to Tuesday’s Supreme Court ruling that determined ballots must include proper dates to be counted.

As he keeps tuned to the latest court rulings and state rules, Gricoski and his staff are busy answering phone calls from voters with questions and tending to the myriad other tasks that must be done before election day.

“We’re getting there,” he said. “We’re getting everything in order.”

For example, this election, the state required election bureaus to order as many ballots as there are registered voters.

Before, they could order by the percentage of the anticipated turnout.

They’ll start counting the ballots at 7 a.m. Tuesday, as required by the state.

“We’ll have it all tallied by the end of the day. We only have about 6,000. We’re not like some of the larger counties 30,000 to 60,000 of them that they to process, so we’ll have our numbers by the end of the evening,” he said.

Does he anticipate a heavy turnout?

Gricoski said that’s hard to tell.

“Its going to be a busy election. We have plenty of ballots for people to get out and vote,” he said.

The turnout depends on any number of factors, including the weather.

“If it rains, they’re not going to come out,” Gricoski said.