How the mail-in ballot notification system works

OWINGS MILLS, MD. Twice a day, 36 of these boxes are delivered back to the Baltimore County Board of Elections office. Al is filled with ballots returned to drop boxes. Three times a day, employees come to the post office to pick up ballots mailed there. And this is just the beginning of the process.

“We are processing results as quickly as possible,” Baltimore County Board of Elections Director Rui Lavoie told WMAR-2 News. “And the reason this is such a process is because there are so many checks and balances to ensure that all votes are counted.”

The county has counted more than 60,000 mail-in ballots so far, but more than 125,000 have been requested.

“It doesn’t happen overnight,” Lavoie said. “As you can see, we are receiving thousands of ballots. Therefore, when ballots arrive, they are dated; they are marked in the ballot box if we receive them through a ballot box or by mail. All of them are marked with the date they were received in the office, and then we begin the process of entering them into the system. Once they enter the system, the voter is notified. Once they are verified, the voter. also notified.”

Voters choose whether to receive notifications via email or text message. These notifications are sent every evening after 18:00. Each ballot has a tracking number. You can check the status of your ballot online Here.

All ballots are counted in Maryland, regardless of when the race is called. Local election officials have until Nov. 15 to certify the results, so they have until then to complete the vote count.

“It has always been like this. I think people didn’t notice it because voting by mail wasn’t that popular back in the day. It’s very popular now,” Lavoie said.

Voters’ mail-in ballots will be set aside to be counted on Nov. 13 as part of the primary election. As the State Board of Elections explains: “Some mail-in ballots will be counted when provisional ballots are counted. This helps maintain the secrecy of votes on provisional ballots. For example, if only one voter at a polling station voted for a provisional ballot. , perhaps you could know how this voter voted. If five mail-in ballots are counted in that provisional ballot, the provisional voter’s choice will remain secret.”

In Baltimore County, this would apply to approximately 1,200 voters—five of each voting style—and there are 243 voting styles, one for each precinct.

“So some voters will get a message that says we’ve received your ballot, but they won’t get a ‘we’ve accepted it’ – accepted meaning counted – until late in the process, and that’s because they’re one of five that were taken.” of every voting style,” Lavoie explained.

Patty Malesh and three of her friends returned their ballots on Thursday, October 31st.

“Even when I turned mine in in the primary, with a week in between, it was received and counted.”

But none of them have yet been notified that they have received ballots.

“Right now, in my little pod, we have four voters who are really concerned about, ‘Hey, I want to make sure my vote counts.’ And until we get that confirmation, I don’t think anyone is thinking about anything else.”

Malesh is familiar with how the system works and how bogged down it is. She served as chief justice of the Democratic Party during the May primaries.

“There is no training there. They come and show you how the machines work, give you a 300-page manual and say, “Read this.” And I read this and I had questions. They said we’ll have a certain time when you can come in with your questions, and I had 12 questions. The manual, in three different places, says that you need to do the same thing differently. thing.”

When she called the state Board of Elections with questions, she said they went unanswered.

When problems arose on primary day – from potential voter intimidation to technical issues – she says her concerns also fell on deaf ears. She and her fellow Republican decided not to return for the general election.

The elections director said she wasn’t aware of those concerns and they likely weren’t communicated to the right people, but she plans to look into them now.

“The only thing I can say, being the chief judge, is that I am not at all concerned about fraud because it is quarantined,” Malesh said. Everyone in power has really paid attention to making any of this nearly impossible, if not impossible. So it doesn’t bother me. I’m worried about other people not panicking like we did,” she said of the mail-in ballot notification system.

To be counted, mail-in ballots must be postmarked or left by 8:00 pm on Election Day.