General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region Forumswhen mail in votes are counted.
interesting article :
https://www.forbes.com/sites/danielcassady/2020/09/05/election-2020-battleground-states-heres-how-theyll-count-mail-in-ballots/
only a few states amongst those that matters will be counting mail in votes on election day. Others such as Florida ,Texas, North Carolina will do so ahead of time.
Some of these battleground states are actually considering early counting :
https://www.pewtrusts.org/research-and-analysis/blogs/stateline/2020/08/28/fearing-delays-and-chaos-swing-states-weigh-early-counting-of-mail-in-ballots
the whole Trump scheme will fail spectacularly .
Thekaspervote
(32,773 posts)Joinfortmill
(14,428 posts)PoindexterOglethorpe
(25,862 posts)Brother Buzz
(36,444 posts)and they are loaded into the tabulators, but the machines are NOT turned on until the polls close. At least that is my understanding.
PoindexterOglethorpe
(25,862 posts)For example, I just looked that up for my state, New Mexico, and I found this on the Santa Fe New Mexican website:
Answer: Counties that send fewer than 10,000 absentee ballots by mail can begin processing them four days before Election Day. Counties that send more than 10,000 ballots can start processing 14 days before the election.
I hope more states have similar policies. A populous state with millions of absentee ballots will take weeks to count them if they wait until the close of polls on November 3.
drray23
(7,633 posts)It varies depending on the states. Some count early but do not divulge the results until poll closing. Some as you say, just preprocess the ballots (open envelopes, check that they are valid, etc..) .