With a hurricane taking aim at Volusia County, voting in the midterm elections continues today until 7 p.m., and there are several high-stakes local races on the local ballots, including mayoral contests in DeLand and Deltona.

The Beacon will be reporting results and candidates’ reactions online beginning about 7 p.m. and continuing until the counting is complete.

Readers will see some results uploaded immediately after the polls close. These are the results of vote-by-mail and early voting. By law, the Elections Office may process vote-by-mail ballots, but not tally or report the results, before the polls close.

On Election Day, the Volusia County Elections Office was reporting that 90,556 residents had already voted by mail, and another 57,902 voted early. Volusia County has a total of 413,924 active voters eligible to cast ballots in today’s election.

The Election Canvassing Board will be in session today at the Elections Office, 1750 S. Woodland Blvd. in DeLand. One of the Canvassing Board’s jobs is to consider vote-by-mail ballots whose signatures don’t match what’s on file with the Elections Office.

On Nov. 7, DeLand residents Allisa and Daniel Dekoeyer visited the Elections Office to complete and turn in their vote-by-mail ballots, and the couple were surprised to learn that neither of their signatures matched the signatures on file.

The Dekoeyers were able to “cure” their ballots on the spot, after learning that the Elections Office uses the signature on a voter’s driver license for comparison.

For ballots with signatures that don’t match that were mailed to the Elections Office or dropped off without verification of the signature, the Elections Office will attempt to contact the voter in an effort to cure the problem — if the voter provided contact information on the ballot envelope.

Voters concerned about the fate of their vote-by-mail ballots may check the ballot’s status on the Elections Office website here: https://www.voterfocus.com/VoterInformationLookup/voterSearch?county=vol