LEWISTON — City Hall has already received 6,387 absentee ballots for the 2016 election, which is a record for the city, according to City Clerk Kathy Montejo.

That number is “the most absentee ballots we’ve ever had,” she said.

Almost 900 more ballots are expected to arrive between Sunday and Tuesday. 

Montejo said they had 20 citizens volunteer to help process the votes into four ballot-counting machines.  

“We had about 10 Democrats, 10 Republicans helping,” she said. “We started at 9 this morning and worked straight through, and finished around 3 p.m.”

Montejo said this is the first time they’ve ever been allowed to start processing votes early. The state of Maine changed the time constraints on early vote processing because of the large voter turnout expected, she said. 

“We can’t get the results and totals from the machines until 8 p.m. Tuesday,” she said.

The remaining absentee ballots received Saturday through Tuesday will be counted Tuesday with the regular votes.

Any ballot received after 8 p.m. Tuesday will not count.