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Election 2020

Onondaga County closes polls with record-breaking voter turnout

Emily Steinberger | Photo Editor

Voting centers across Onondaga County opened at 6 a.m. today and will remain open until 9 p.m.

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Onondaga County closed its polls at 9 p.m., breaking its voter turnout record with an estimated 233,000 ballots cast.

As of 5 p.m., about 96,900 people had voted at a polling place on Election Day, while 53,369  submitted mail-in ballots, according to the Onondaga County Board of Elections. About 59,000 people visited polling centers between Oct. 24 and Sunday to cast their ballots ahead of Election Day.

The board of elections hasn’t released an updated breakdown since about 5 p.m., but Dustin Czarny, the Onondaga County Democratic elections commissioner, tweeted around 10 p.m. that the turnout was estimated at over 233,000 votes. More eligible absentee ballots can come in until Nov. 10, Czarny said.

At the Erwin First United Methodist Church polling center on Euclid Avenue, 473 voters cast their ballots while 385 voted at Huntington Hall on Syracuse University’s campus. At the Spiritual Renewal Center near South Campus, 695 Onondaga County residents voted.



Onondaga County’s previous voter turnout record was set in the 2008 election with 220,000 votes. The county surpassed 200,000 votes at about 4 p.m. on Tuesday, said Dustin Czarny, the Onondaga County Democratic elections commissioner.

Voting centers across Onondaga County opened at 6 a.m. Tuesday and remained open until 9 p.m.

The county will begin reporting the results of in-person voting from Election Day and the early voting period at 9 p.m. It will not begin to count absentee ballots until Nov. 9.

This post will be updated throughout the night as updated voting counts are released.

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