POUGHKEEPSIE — The Dutchess County Board of Elections has announced that the county’s votes have been certified and have now been sent to Albany for the State Board of Elections to correlate with the other counties vote totals.
According to the county’s 2020 certification, 81,443 votes were cast for President-Elect Joseph Biden, and 66,872 votes were cast for President Donald Trump. In addition, 2,430 votes were cast for third party presidential candidates, and 610 ballots were left blank.
In total, 151,889 ballots were cast across the county, including the votes cast during early voting and over 31,000 absentee ballots.
Voter turnout was nearly 80 percent. “This has been a year for the history books and hopefully one we never endure again. Managing a presidential election during a pandemic threw seemingly impossible challenges at us, but our staff and inspectors performed admirably, and with precision,” Republican Board of Elections Commissioner Erik Haight said. “Mechanically and administratively, this has been the toughest election season I have worked during my tenure at the board, and I want to thank Commissioner Elizabeth Soto for her hard work, intelligence and professionalism. We couldn’t have succeeded this year without her.”
The State Board of Elections will now also complete the certification of the elections that overlap with Dutchess County and into other counties.
These elections include the 18th and 19th Congressional Districts, the 9th Judicial District, the 40th and 41st state Senate Districts, and the 103rd, 104th and 106th Assembly Districts.
“The hurdles that came with this pervasive virus during a presidential election were daunting, but our duty to administer a fair and open election system was met head-on with good planning and excellent staff. I’m proud of every single one of them,” said Democratic Commissioner Elizabeth Soto. “Commissioner Haight and I cooperated in a bipartisan fashion that the public deserves and expects to guarantee that every vote counts, so that every voter has the highest confidence in our democracy, and in their franchise.”
