HELENA — The City-County Building in Helena is quiet on Wednesday, but it was a different story Tuesday night as lines of people stretched through the halls waiting to register and cast their ballot late on election night.
"We've been in line for an hour and 15 minutes," said Ashley Weber, one Lewis & Clark County voter.
Another, Maria Casselli, said, "I've been here for about two and a half hours."
"I've never seen the building, in my 32 years of being in this building, be that full," said Amy Reeves, Treasurer/Clerk and Recorder for Lewis & Clark County.
She said the last person in line to register and vote left for the evening a little after midnight, and by law, the county cannot release the first count until the line is clear.
Reeves mentioned this election saw a lot of first-time voters.
"We had people that had been of age to vote for 20, 30, even 40 years, come in and register this year and had never voted. So, we saw a lot of that this year," she said.
Elections officials were there for around 30 hours as of Wednesday afternoon, similar to the last general election, when they worked for roughly 35 hours.
Reeves said, "Obviously, this was a little more than we had anticipated. We also had some ideas on how to get things to run smoother. Some of the ideas worked, and some didn't."
She also mentioned how new election security legislation is causing officials to fill out a lot more paperwork, and technological difficulties with some computers slowed down their process.
"Trying to make the changes the best we can with the new laws and make sure everything is flowing as good as we can," said Reeves.
