Polling places closed at 7 p.m. tonight, but Bolingbrook area election officials say the results of local races may not be known until late Tuesday night, and in some cases, for weeks.

“Because of the volume of early voters and absentee voters in this election, even if there appears to be a clear winner in some of the local races the  official outcomes might not be known until several hours after the polls close,” said Carol Penning, Bolingbrook’s village clerk and an election official.

Voters waiting in line will be allowed to vote after 7 p.m. as long as they were in line by 7 p.m., Penning said.

“An election official will go outside if there is a line and determine who is actually in line as of 7 p.m., and those voters are supposed to be allowed to vote,” Penning said.

In Bolingbrook election judges are scheduled to gather all voting materials once the polls close and transport them to the Levy Senior Center on Canterbury Lane, designated as a satellite office for the Office of the Will County Clerk.

Because of anticipated delays in closing polling place doors, vote tallies may not be delivered to the Levy Center until after 8 p.m.

“In the past, sometimes the voting materials were collected by 7:30 p.m. I doubt that will be the case tonight,” Penning said.

Once votes cast at polling places are tallied, early vote totals are added to those before the clerk’s office can publish official final results, Penning said.

Penning said more than 20 percent of the Will County vote totals will be ballots cast by early voters or absentee voters.

Over the last two weeks more than 4,000 voters cast early ballots at the Bolingbrook Municipal Center alone.

Provisional ballots can take up to two weeks to tabulate.

“In the February primary in which the Fountaindale Public Library referendum was on the ballot, initial returns were very close but it looked like the referendum failed,” Penning said.

However, when provisional ballots were added to the mix two weeks later it was determined the referendum passed by a vote of 7,567 for and 7,517 against.

After ballots initially were counted Feb. 5 the referendum appeared to have failed by a vote of 7,440 no and 7,405 yes.

The library district even issued a release after the Feb. 5 primary stating it appeared the referendum had failed, pending a final count of provisional votes.

“It takes two weeks for all the ballots to be totaled, so in cases of a close race those absentee and provisional ballots can make a huge difference in a tight race,” said William Mayer, chairman of the DuPage Township Republican Organization.

“I doubt we will know the outcome of local races until at least 10 p.m. or later,” Mayer said. “In some cases, it could be longer.”