UPDATE: While just 1% of precincts were being reported by midnight, the candidates appeared to have a sense of who won, with two contenders conceding and another two declaring victory. Here's our full story on the preliminary Boston mayoral election.
If you've been following Boston's preliminary mayoral election and wondered where the results are, you're not alone.
More than two hours after polls closed, just over a few hundred votes had been transmitted through The Associated Press, despite thousands of people having voted at the polls alone.
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What's the hold up? State elections officials explained on Twitter that it has to do at least in part with ballot drop boxes, one of the ways voters were encouraged to return their ballots this year.
Elections officials told NBC10 Boston that about 7,000 ballots were received Tuesday by mail or drop box, and they would be processed at Boston's Election Department, including cross-referencing with voter rolls.
All the ballots will be counted Tuesday night, the officials added.
While the delay in vote counting may mean it'll be a long night for some of the candidates and their supporters, City Councilor Michelle Wu -- who'd been leading the polls -- was confident enough in them to claim victory on the night.
She told supporters around 10 p.m. that she's confident she'll be among the top two vote-getters, qualifying her for the next and final round in the mayoral race.
Boston was one of 15 cities holding elections Tuesday, but the historic implications of the race meant the capital's mayoral race was especially closely watched -- the city has never elected a woman or a person of color to its top job.
But the wait for results left the city's politicos online with nothing much to do but wait and crack jokes.
