How long for mail-in election results?

[teen persuasion]

Question for those of you in states with all or majority mail in voting: how long does it take to get complete results?

I'm used to morning-after news on who won yesterday's election.  NY is usually restrictive on anything but one day, in person voting, but recently added early voting (last November) and extended absentee voting due to Covid-19.

Yesterday's (closed) primary and special election to fill convict Chris Collins' NY 27 seat was really unusual, so I have no idea of expected turnout numbers, or how many shifted to absentee.  Jacobs is claiming victory with roughly 69% of in person votes, but Nate McMurray is waiting for the absentee counts. There's at least 7 days allowed for postmarked ballots to get delivered. Then how long for verification and results?

This bit from [BN] sounds like lots more absentee than in person:

Jacobs opens big early lead in NY-27 special election

State Sen. Chris Jacobs sprinted to an early lead Tuesday in his race against Democrat Nate McMurray in the special election in New York's 27th congressional district.
With 28,055 votes counted, Jacobs led with 69% of the vote, compared to 30% for McMurray.
That's just a fraction of the number of votes in the election, however. At least 65,509 mail-in ballots were left to be counted after Election Day in Erie, Niagara, Orleans, Genesee, Livingston, Ontario and Wyoming counties. Monroe County, which also has some territory in the 27th district, did not report the number of absentee ballots it received.

Also wondering how the breakdown will fall in absentee, vs in person. Googling for data, I had to look at individual counties for details, and some showed that early voting numbers were nearly 50-50, vs election day numbers more to Jacobs (some counties had terrible data reporting, others excellent).

[mollyanna58]

NJ sent mail-in ballots to all registered voters for the primary. The instructions say the ballots must be received within 2 days after the primary.

[Sharon]

I live in Oregon and the change in complete results is really no different than when we went to a polling place.  For one, post marks don't count.  The ballot must be received by election day, so if you don't mail it early enough it will need to be dropped off.  There are several drop off locations through out the state.  In my area there are ballot boxes in several grocery stores, the city hall etc.

The signatures are verified ahead of time so that the ballots are ready to begin counting on election day once the polls close.  There are always a few outlier ballots that may not be counted on election day etc.  For example you dropped your ballot off in a different county.  It is then transported to the proper county and counted there.  That is why the results aren't certified for so many days (the number escapes me at the moment) after an election.

ETA: Oregon has been vote by mail for years.

[teen persuasion]

Our ballots said postmarked before election day, news said by election day, but the ballot definitely said it allowed 7 days to arrive. They are cross referencing to make sure you didn't vote in more than one way.

They are warning it might be July 7 before results are known.

[teen persuasion]

Jun 24, 2020 10:03:17 GMT -5 mollyanna58 said:

NJ sent mail-in ballots to all registered voters for the primary. The instructions say the ballots must be received within 2 days after the primary.

NY sent absentee ballot APPLICATIONS to everyone.  We filled them out, and WAITED for the ballots to arrive.  We got them either late Friday or Saturday, so we mailed them first thing Monday morning, before Tuesday's in person voting.  That's way too close.

I'm hoping this is a good trial run for November, and they learn and work out the kinks now.

[swamp]

Jun 24, 2020 10:58:29 GMT -5 teen persuasion said:

Jun 24, 2020 10:03:17 GMT -5 mollyanna58 said:

NJ sent mail-in ballots to all registered voters for the primary. The instructions say the ballots must be received within 2 days after the primary.

NY sent absentee ballot APPLICATIONS to everyone.  We filled them out, and WAITED for the ballots to arrive.  We got them either late Friday or Saturday, so we mailed them first thing Monday morning, before Tuesday's in person voting.  That's way too close.

I'm hoping this is a good trial run for November, and they learn and work out the kinks now.

Your Board of Elections was way behind mind.  The Absentee ballots went out a few weeks ago.    They are given about a week to show up, and it's about a week to count and certify.     A rough estimate comes out at a day after they give for the ballots to come back. 

But I'm told the results will be certified by July 10. 

ETA:  We also had early voting which required you to go to the Board of Elections in the County Seat.   Those votes were counted last night.   

[thyme4change]

The McSally-Sinema race wasn't conceded until the following Tuesday because they were counting mail-in ballots. They start counting them 10 days before the election, but process the drop-offs, last day mail ins and provisional ballots after they do the in-person ballots.

[billisonboard]

I'm used to morning-after news on who won yesterday's election.

Instant gratification. Isn't modern life amazing!

[alabamagal]

Here in KY they encouraged mail in votes. Returns had to be postmarked by Election Day, so “official results” won’t be out until next week. Actually in most elections, the official numbers don’t happen until then.

It will be interesting to see what happens in the Democratic primary race. Amy McGrath has been the presumptive D nominee to run against McConnell for the last year, but currently showing 44%. Booker made a last minute surge from the far left by showing him at protests and running ads showing McGrath saying she didn’t attend protests. He is at 38%. Looks like McGrath will not get to 50% so there will be runoff.

[The Walk of the Penguin Mich]

I live in WA, where we only have mail in voting. 

With races where there is a clear winner, sometimes we find out the same night.  If it is close, the results can take a few weeks until everything is in and counted.

[chiver78]

I haven't changed my voter registration yet, since I'm not sure exactly where I will be in November. I just noticed a post from a Selectman in the old town's FB group talking about how our (R) Governor signed a bill to approve mail-in ballots for November (not sure if just this once or a permanent option) and OMG the MAGAts are losing their minds. one even called me paranoid for pointing out exactly how and where she was weaving her tinfoil hat to fan the paranoia flames. 🤣🙄🤦‍♀️

sorry, couldn't find another good place to put this. at least this thread is discussing mail-in voting. /endhijack

[teen persuasion]

I think it fits pretty well here, chiver78.

Still waiting for results.

Looking for them online, I saw articles about how many more people voted (during a pandemic, on an unusual date because they postponed it) due to getting the absentee option. It was 10 times the usual absentee number, but that's normally low - you need an excuse. Not sure of the increase in votes cast, but it's running multiples of normal numbers, both for the primary/special election and also for the school budget votes a few weeks earlier.

The news article was basically: make it easier to vote, and more people do it. Who knew?

[kadee79]

Was reading earlier that since DT is ranting/raving about mail in ballots are going to be fraud...a LOT of GOPers aren't going to do it.  The article even said that a group in Mich. had gotten together & burned their applications for absentee ballots.  Which means some may not vote at all while the Democrats keep right on trucking with their absentee ballots.

[Knee Deep in Water Chloe]

I'm also in Oregon, and we have the system worked out pretty well. 

[teen persuasion]

Still waiting, but beginning to see absentee vote results. And Jacobs' lead is shrinking, from 31% to 6.3% (two more counties to report, won't count until next week).

Erie County late Wednesday revised its results for the June 23 special election for Congress in New York's 27th District, adding in a wave of 41,679 absentee ballots. Five other counties in the district reported their absentee vote totals, too, all of them much higher than usual thanks to the Covid-19 pandemic.

The results? What once was a 31-point Jacobs lead had dwindled to 6.3 percentage points. With about 14,000 absentee ballots from Niagara and Genesee counties still not included, Jacobs leads by 8,668 votes. The lead is 52% for Jacobs to 45.7% for McMurray.

McMurray said he was encouraged by the results, noting that he outperformed in a suburban-rural district where Republicans have an enrollment edge of 11 percentage points, where Donald Trump won by 24 points in 2016.

...
Jacobs won't become a member of Congress right away, though. Niagara County Elections Commissioner Lora Allen said the county won't even begin counting its absentee ballots until next week, and the election results can't be certified until that count is completed.

That means the soonest Jacobs could be sworn in would be the week of July 20, when the House returns from a two-week recess.

Cam Savage, Jacobs' political consultant, said he expected the June special election race to tighten once the absentee ballots were counted. Election officials had previously said the vast majority of absentee ballots returned were from Democratic voters.

"We knew that Democrats were going to vote by mail much more than Republicans and that's why on election night when our lead went over 30,000, we were very comfortable saying that was insurmountable based on the number of absentees that came in," Savage said.

McMurray said he didn't do as well in Erie County in the special election as he did in his 2018 race against then-Rep. Chris Collins, a Republican who resigned last October upon pleading guilty to felony insider trading charges. That may be because of "people remembering the old Chris Jacobs," McMurray said, referring to the fact that Jacobs always appeared to be a moderate Republican until latching his fortune to Trump's.

But McMurray's performance improved in the eastern counties of the sprawling district, which stretches all the way to the Finger Lakes.

He said he expected to perform better across the district in his November rematch against Jacobs.

"With a 6% divide in the most red district in New York State, with all the support Trump had to throw at him, I think we should feel pretty darn good," McMurray said.

BN article, probably paywalled
The breakdowns by voting method are interesting. Not sure which county this (tweet pic of counts) is, maybe Erie?
McMurray dem in person 8415 early 873 absentee 24966
McMurray wor in person 536 early 52 absentee 1491
Jacobs rep in person 20843 early 1297 absentee 12236
Jacobs ind in person 1643 early 98 absentee 1669

[lynnerself]

Jun 24, 2020 10:06:57 GMT -5 Sharon said:

I live in Oregon and the change in complete results is really no different than when we went to a polling place.  For one, post marks don't count.  The ballot must be received by election day, so if you don't mail it early enough it will need to be dropped off.  There are several drop off locations through out the state.  In my area there are ballot boxes in several grocery stores, the city hall etc.

The signatures are verified ahead of time so that the ballots are ready to begin counting on election day once the polls close.  There are always a few outlier ballots that may not be counted on election day etc.  For example you dropped your ballot off in a different county.  It is then transported to the proper county and counted there.  That is why the results aren't certified for so many days (the number escapes me at the moment) after an election.

ETA: Oregon has been vote by mail for years.

Are you sure of this? I have always been under the impression that votes are being counted as they arrive.  That's why we have results available right at 8 pm. About 50% of the votes have already been counted.

“We’ve actually been working on all the ballots that have come in up until yesterday so we will have 50-60% of total ballots cast ready to report just after 8 tomorrow night,” said Multnomah County Elections Director Tim Scott.

www.koin.com/news/elections/oregon-voting-ballot-counting-in-age-of-pandemic/

[billisonboard]

Jul 10, 2020 16:00:48 GMT -5 lynnerself said:

Jun 24, 2020 10:06:57 GMT -5 Sharon said:

I live in Oregon and the change in complete results is really no different than when we went to a polling place.  For one, post marks don't count.  The ballot must be received by election day, so if you don't mail it early enough it will need to be dropped off.  There are several drop off locations through out the state.  In my area there are ballot boxes in several grocery stores, the city hall etc.

The signatures are verified ahead of time so that the ballots are ready to begin counting on election day once the polls close.  There are always a few outlier ballots that may not be counted on election day etc.  For example you dropped your ballot off in a different county.  It is then transported to the proper county and counted there.  That is why the results aren't certified for so many days (the number escapes me at the moment) after an election.

ETA: Oregon has been vote by mail for years.

Are you sure of this? I have always been under the impression that votes are being counted as they arrive.  That's why we have results available right at 8 pm. About 50% of the votes have already been counted.

“We’ve actually been working on all the ballots that have come in up until yesterday so we will have 50-60% of total ballots cast ready to report just after 8 tomorrow night,” said Multnomah County Elections Director Tim Scott.

www.koin.com/news/elections/oregon-voting-ballot-counting-in-age-of-pandemic/

Oregon.gov › sos › statisticsPDF
oregon vote-by-mail time line - Oregon Secretary of State - State of Oregon

Ballots are held for counting until election day. Vote by mail (VBM) packets are mailed to all eligible voters. Each packet contains a secrecy envelope, ballot ...
14 pages·472 KB

I think that working on means opening, verifying, checking for issues like weirdly marked, etc and putting in stacks. Then on election day, they start feeding the ballots through the scanning machines.

[Sharon]

Jul 10, 2020 16:00:48 GMT -5 lynnerself said:

Jun 24, 2020 10:06:57 GMT -5 Sharon said:

I live in Oregon and the change in complete results is really no different than when we went to a polling place.  For one, post marks don't count.  The ballot must be received by election day, so if you don't mail it early enough it will need to be dropped off.  There are several drop off locations through out the state.  In my area there are ballot boxes in several grocery stores, the city hall etc.

The signatures are verified ahead of time so that the ballots are ready to begin counting on election day once the polls close.  There are always a few outlier ballots that may not be counted on election day etc.  For example you dropped your ballot off in a different county.  It is then transported to the proper county and counted there.  That is why the results aren't certified for so many days (the number escapes me at the moment) after an election.

ETA: Oregon has been vote by mail for years.

Are you sure of this? I have always been under the impression that votes are being counted as they arrive.  That's why we have results available right at 8 pm. About 50% of the votes have already been counted.

“We’ve actually been working on all the ballots that have come in up until yesterday so we will have 50-60% of total ballots cast ready to report just after 8 tomorrow night,” said Multnomah County Elections Director Tim Scott.

www.koin.com/news/elections/oregon-voting-ballot-counting-in-age-of-pandemic/

My Mom was an election worker for years.  The ballots weren't counted until election day.