With more than 370,000 votes still being scanned in in the county, Monmouth County Clerk Christine Hanlon spoke to News 12 about the risks of calling elections – even on a local level – too soon.

In a county which will likely break turnout records, roughly 35% of the ballots remain to be checked, scanned and logged as sorters can only manage around 25,000 votes per day -- an admittedly slow, yet accurate process, according to Hanlon.

Monmouth County is counting votes in the order in which they were received. As of Thursday, workers were logging votes received a week-and-a-half before election day, leaving 10 days' worth of ballots unscanned.

"I understand that voters and candidates want to know the results," Hanlon said. "There is so much more to be done, and when you look at early voting compared to late voting, it can totally change the landscape of who the winner is."

"It is so frustrating even here in Monmouth County (that) people are calling races when there's such a small percentage of ballots. We didn't even know how many ballots we had when races were being called, we were only approximating," she said.

This year, Hanlon says trends show Democrats cast their mail in ballots earlier than Republicans.

Provisional ballots cast in-person on Election Day will begin to be counted next Tuesday.