All absentee ballots are first checked to make sure they are properly submitted…and they are ALL counted if so. They are not “break close outcome” ballots. They are regular votes just like the ones anyone else casts.
We have two polling places in our town. If a poll worker is assigned to the polling place that is not their own, they vote using an absentee ballot.
As noted…all absentee ballots must be received by a certain time on Election Day to be counted.
Yes, all absentee ballots are counted. I think people are confusing the calling an election for a specific candidate, which they may be able to before those ballots are counted in the vote tally.
I don’t understand why someone would think that absentee ballots would only be counted if they made a difference in the election outcome. Why would that make any sense? A vote is a vote.
I envy those of you in states with early voting! PA does not have that, I expect to have long lines at my polling place, and have added an extra worker for this election to keep things moving better. We were swamped in the primary, and my elderly workers can only go so fast! And while it is stated that you can’t leave, even the county trainers say a half hour lunch break for workers is fine. I expect we will have a lot of absentee ballots to count by hand after 8 PM when we are allowed to open them. I have never had anyone challenge an absentee ballot, but with all the poll watching going on this year, who knows? We count them first, but they are the scantron type and I think the county may scan them later.
Regarding questions on the counting of absentee ballots, they are counted before the election is certified in the state. No ballot cast within the state laws goes uncounted. But the volume of absentee ballots not received by the election date are rarely enough to tip the election.
@mamabear1234 and others working the polls, have you talked about/are you taking steps regarding the call for poll watchers by one candidate. I know it is not uncommon and we saw it in my polling place during the last presidential election but given the current climate I was wondering if there is any concerns about disruptions of any kind.
Unofficial checkers are permitted in our polling places. These are folks who sit behind the official poll checkers. The official checkers are not permitted to talk to the unofficial checkers at all…and vice versa.
The unofficial checkers are listening as the voters state their names for the checkers.
I’m not sure much more can be said without getting political which is against the TOS here.
Poll watchers (in my county at least) have to have a credential, which I believe is issued by the party bosses. They are allowed to listen to the names of the people who come in to vote and/or check our hand-written list of voters to see who has voted so far. I think there will be areas where disruptions occur but I am in the suburbs and do not expect much.
We’ve had the unofficial checkers with credentials in our polling place before.
I guess I’m just wondering if some of the tension and rhetoric of this election cycle is leading to those in charge of overseeing the polling places to take extra steps of precaution/extra security just in case some of the tension we are seeing online and at political places brings itself to the polls. Or is this election being treated just like every other election.
I wish California has this provision for absentee ballot like NY:
“Be detained in jail, awaiting trial or Grand Jury action, or in prison conviction for an offense that isn’t a felony”
I can easily meet that requirement.
doschicos, there has always been someone who is deputized by the local sheriff in the room, but they are not armed, just with a cell phone to call 911. My little township alone has 8 voting districts, I can’t see them adding extra security to every polling place across the county, but the local police are very responsive. We are treating it like every election.
Well, I hope the process goes smoothly across the country and we have a smooth transition.
The election I was referring to was a local election. One year, one candidate led by about 150 votes and there were 20 absentee ballots. They weren’t counted because they didn’t make a difference. Another year, one candidate was ahead by 5 votes and there were about a dozen absentee ballots. They were counted.
As for the poll watchers, they are more crazed in the local elections than the state or federal. They are credentialed by the party and the number who can be present at any time is limited. At the last local election, I had to call the police to remove one poll watcher who kept marching up to the voting table and challenging anyone who looked Hispanic. In one instance, she walked up and announced that she was challenging the person’s qualifications because they couldn’t speak English and the person hadn’t opened their mouth yet! I had her removed because she refused my directive to remain behind the taped line that had been put down for the poll watchers. I also had to have a poll watcher from the other party removed because he kept yelling that particular people were felons and not allowed to vote (only one actually turned out to be, but we had to give him an affidavit because we weren’t sure) but I was able to do that by speaking to one of the local officials of that party, who agreed that his poll watcher was out of line and told him to go home. The issue was not that he was challenging people but that he was screaming at and about people in the polling room after I told him to simply signal to me if he had someone he wanted to challenge.
I expect situations at this year’s election. In large part, it will be due to the fact that my polling place is a small room and there are 3 districts in it. There are about 5 - 6,000 registered voters in the district and there will be lines. If the electronic machines malfunction, as they are wont to do, it will be awful.
In the California primary, there were well over two million “late absentee” and provisional ballots that were not counted on Election Day. (Late absentees are absentee ballots not received before Election Day. In California it is legal to drop your absentee ballot off on Election Day, or mail it as late as Election Day.) That large number is certainly enough to change the result for a closely fought proposition or statewide race.