When will mail-in and absentee ballots be counted?

This story originally appeared on NPR.

Election Day is this Tuesday, but for various reasons, we may not get the results that night.

One such hold-up is the work it takes to process and count mail-in ballots.

Most U.S. states provide some form of early in-person voting and mail-in voting for all voters, and tens of millions of voters have cast ballots early this year.

Because each state has different rules regarding the timeline for processing and counting mail-in ballots, many election officials cannot start tabulating these ballots until Election Day or even after the polls close that night.

Make sure you are aware of when your state starts processing and counting mail-in ballots.

And remember to sit tight and stay calm as results finally do come in.

Local laws limit when election officials can process ballots

Absentee and mail-in ballots must be processed before they can be counted.

The process of handling mailed ballots varies by state, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Typically, it includes several steps: checking the ballot envelope, verifying that the signature on the return envelope matches the voter’s signature on file, opening the envelope, and preparing the ballot for counting. In most states, officials cannot feed the ballot into the tabulator until the polls close on Election Day.

Absentee and mail ballots have to be processed before they can be tallied.

• Forty-three states and the Virgin Islands allow election officials to begin processing these early ballots before Election Day.
• In Connecticut and Ohio, election officials can choose to start processing early ballots before at their discretion.
• In seven states — Alabama, Mississippi, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, West Virginia and Wisconsin, as well as Washington, D.C., — mailed-in ballots can be processed on Election Day and before the polls close.

Mail ballots typically require more time and resources to process than in-person votes, especially when there is a large volume, as was the case in the 2020 election. The limited time available for processing ballots on Election Day can exacerbate delays. This issue became particularly pronounced during the pandemic when laws were modified to allow more people to vote early, resulting in significant challenges for election workers handling absentee and mail ballots.

In 2020, Kathleen Hale, the director of Auburn University’s Election Administration Initiative, told NPR to think of this process like the holiday season, when receiving gifts and writing thank-you notes.

“Maybe you would normally receive 10 gifts and write thank-you notes for each of the gifts. Only now you’re going to receive a thousand of them,” Hale said. “The technical steps aren’t terribly complicated — there is simply a long sequence that has to take place.”

OK, but when are these ballots counted and the results known?

Counting, tallying and tabulating are terms that states use to describe the process of scanning ballots through their voting machines, according to the NCSL.

Most states begin the tabulation of mail ballots on Election Day, although there are some important differences among them. In certain states, it is illegal to share results from mail-in ballots before the polls close, which typically occurs between 6 p.m. ET and 12 a.m. ET.

According to the NCSL, these are the timelines for states to begin tabulating early ballots.

The 14 states that don’t allow counting to begin until polls close

• Alabama, Alaska, Idaho, Illinois, Maine, Minnesota, Mississippi, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Dakota, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Vermont, Washington and Washington, D.C.

The 23 states that mandate counting begin on Election Day before polls close

• Arkansas, California, Georgia, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Missouri, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, West Virginia, Wisconsin and Wyoming.

The 12 states that allow processing and counting to start before Election Day:

• Arizona, Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Hawaii, Kansas, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Jersey, Virginia and Utah.

Connecticut allows local registrars of voters to determine when to start counting ballots, according to the NCSL. In the Virgin Islands, counting begins after absentee ballots have been processed, though the exact timing is not specified. Puerto Rico does not indicate when counting can begin.