BOSTON (WHDH) - Ballot counting continued into Wednesday morning at City Hall as residents anxiously waited to see which two candidates will face off for mayor in November.

City Councilor Michelle Wu has advanced in the mayoral race but her opponent remained too early to call with 80 percent of precincts reporting as of 8:30 a.m.

Boston Election Commissioner Eneida Tavares told 7NEWS that about 7,000 ballots from across the city were received via mail or by dropbox by the 8 p.m. Tuesday deadline and had to be cross-referenced with voter lists that were delivered to City Hall to confirm the voters didn’t already vote in person.

She said it would be a lengthy process because each ballot had to be checked individually.

“It’s not like we have ballots for just one or two precincts,” Tavares said. “We have ballots for every single precinct across the city, so we have to check every single voting list one by one as if that person was actually going into the polling location.”

The cross-referencing concluded around 5:30 a.m. Wednesday but the ballots still needed to be entered into the system before the results could be released.

This is a developing news story; stay with 7NEWS on-air and online for the latest details.

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