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Workers in West Chester, Pennsylvania process postal ballot papers for the presidential election.
It could take days or even weeks after the election until they are all evaluated
Photo: Matt Slocum / dpa
Douglas Smith is tired.
You can tell when he walks down the hallways of the Erie County District Court, his back slightly bent, his eyes puffy from sleep.
The 61-year-old often carries a box with envelopes on his arm: filled out ballot papers waiting to be counted on November 3rd.
The Post currently brings him a delivery several times a day.
"You're working extra shifts right now," says Smith.
"As do we all."
Douglas Smith is the election officer for Erie County, a county on the northern edge of Pennsylvania.
He has to make sure that everything goes smoothly when the elections on November 3rd in Erie - like everywhere in the US - are held.
That's why Smith and his colleagues have hardly slept in weeks
work twelve hours a day.
"I'm glad when it's all over," says Smith.
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Douglas Smith in his office in the Erie District Court.
He has hardly slept in weeks, he says
Photo: Alexandra Jojkov / DER SPIEGEL
The problem: Nobody knows when it will be over.
In normal years there is a reliable result on the evening of election day, and no later than the morning after it is certain who will be US president.
But nothing is normal this year.
"It's the toughest choice of my life," said Smith, who has been in office since 2003.
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