How will votes be counted in Connecticut?
The process of tallying won't start until the day of the election.
With all of the confusion and complications surrounding absentee ballots in this year’s election, you may be wondering how votes will be counted in Connecticut.
Counting the votes once the polls close on Election Day is a decentralized process, as each municipality counts its own votes separately. After the votes are counted, they are sent to the Secretary of the State.
Both in-person and absentee ballots will be counted on Election Day. Towns are not allowed to open mail-in ballots until the day of the election; however, they are able to verify the legitimacy of the inner envelope which contains a voter’s submitted ballot and signature starting on October 30 at 5 p.m.
Absentee ballots must be received by local town clerks by 8 p.m. on Election Day or they will not be counted.
According to Connecticut’s Secretary of the State website: “When the polls close on Election Day, the Town Clerks feed the ballots into the tabulators to be counted. Each town is able to report their results in separate totals for absentee ballots and for polling places.”
Because of the unprecedented amount of absentee ballots being sent in in 2020, results may not be known on election night. Absentee ballots take longer to count, and since many states cannot begin counting them until Election Day, this may cause official results to be delayed.
In addition, there are some states that allow mail-in ballots to be received after Election Day as long as they are postmarked by Nov. 3. This is the case in North Carolina and Pennsylvania, which are allowing ballots to be counted nine days and three days after, respectively. Delivery delays by the U.S. Postal Service nationwide also mean a large number of votes may be counted after Election Day.
Election officials are encouraging Americans to be patient. And just because the winner of the 2020 presidential race won’t be called on election night, that doesn’t mean the eventual results will be flawed or fraudulent.