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Originally Posted by DanaC
So.....explain to me why the absentee ballots aren't just conted along with the rest?
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The ballots just take a bit more handling, and it's in large part manual; the envelopes they're in have to be opened. Absentee ballots would have been handled a bit more smoothly this month had they come in in greater quantity before election day, is the opinion in California. A couple of local offices are still hanging in the balance, one by a difference of six votes, so we're being, shall we say, meticulous. The local Department of Elections found itself suddenly snowed under with 71,000 absentee ballots that they'd hoped to be seeing over a couple of weeks previous to our traditional first-Tuesday-in-November-that-isn't-1-November election day.
In our county, the paper ballots are then fed through an optical scanner, which is talented enough to read the ballots backwards, forwards, or upside down accurately, so pretty much all that has to happen is to get the ballots out of the envelopes, unfolded, and stuck in the scanner's slot. Inside a second per ballot sheet the gizmo has read and tabulated the votes on the ballot, which then goes into storage for a couple of years, by statutory requirement. These will vary by state -- the Federal government has little to say on the detailed requirements, anti-fraud measures, and the like.