How Long Will It Take to Count All Those Mail-in Ballots?
Mail-in ballots stacked up waiting to be counted in 2018.
Election night is never the end of campaign season. It just seems that way.
It can be, if a jurisdiction or counties report a big enough difference between two candidates that even mail-in ballots that arrive after Election Day won’t change the outcome.
Then came 2020.
The Illinois State Board of Elections reported Monday around 600,000 of around 2.3 million ballots requested by mail had yet to be returned. Any ballot postmarked by today will still count if it arrives within 14 days of Election Day.
Between mail-in ballots and early voters, the state reports around 3.6 million ballots have already been submitted. In 2016, about 5.5 million votes were cast.
The State Board of Elections, though, sent out a warning Monday saying the numbers we receive tonight are unofficial and “may change significantly in the two weeks to follow.” That’s because those some-600,000 ballots could come in until November 17 if postmarked by Election Day.
Numerous local races, including a 2018 Sheriff’s race in Macon County, which still isn’t settled, have been impacted by late-arriving mail-in votes. Thousands more are expected this year. With numerous legislative races closer than 300 votes in 2018, it’s likely some of those won’t be settled for a couple of weeks.
While the final results are likely be two weeks out, election officials from around the state say they will still have normal—or as close to normal as possible—results tonight or early Wednesday morning.
Election officials have already done much of the legwork on preparing the mailed ballots to be counted. Republican and Democrat election judges confirm signatures, check to make sure the person who sent the mailed ballot hasn’t voted a different way, and pulled the ballot out of the envelope for tabulation, though most won’t officially start counting those ballots until the polls close.
McLean County Clerk Kathy Michael, who is responsible for the election outside of the city of Bloomington says she’s expecting a slight delay because they won’t start tabulating mail-in ballots before 7:00 P.M.
“We could get another 1,000 ballots in the mail Wednesday, who knows,” Michael said. “We have several thousand requested and still not returned. I suggest to local candidates, ‘don’t have your victory celebration too early on Tuesday if it’s a close race.’”
St. Clair County Clerk Tom Holbrook says they won’t tabulate mail-in votes until polls close, either, but he says it shouldn’t slow down results.
“[Mail-in] and early voting ballots will be in the first count with the first precincts reporting back to the Courthouse,” he said. “We expect no delays on election night except for late arriving election judges returning to the Courthouse with their totals.”
In suburban Cook County, Deputy County Clerk John Mirkovic says even though they won’t start tabulating the around 380,000 mailed-in ballots until 7:00 P.M., he says they’re prepared to catch up quickly.
“Our prep process combined with our new equipment will allow us to report quickly,” he said. “As you imagine, there will be more ballots arriving on Election Day and for 2 weeks thereafter, but we expect that on Election Night you will see most of the results.”
Voting by mail isn’t new in Illinois. In 2016, voters cast 370,740 votes by mail, though that’s significantly lower than the around 1.8 million ballots already in this year. The state says 43% of registered voters have already voted.
Illinois has more than 8.3 million registered voters for the 2020 general election, which is a record.
If statewide turnout for this election matches 2016’s 70.56 percent, 5.87 million votes will be cast.