BRAZOS COUNTY, Texas — It’s been more than a day since polls closed on November 3, 2020, and poll workers across the country are still counting and processing ballots.
Experts have told people time and again to be patient, but a lot of people are still wondering, what that process really looks like and how long it will take.
Brazos County alone is having to process 6,000 mail-in ballots and were accepting even more on Wednesday as long as they were postmarked by Election Day.
Elections officials will accept military and oversees ballots until Monday, November 9, 2020.
After that day, the early voting ballot board, with members from the Democrat, Republican and Libertarian parties, meets in the morning Tuesday, November 10, 2020 to qualify the remaining ballots.
“Every ballot has a jacket, so in that jacket is the ballot envelope and the application the voter filled out to receive that ballot,” said Trudy Hancock, the Brazos County Elections Administrator.
After comparing signatures officials will run a count through a scanner again Tuesday evening revealing their final numbers.
So things will take time.
People might have seen some social media conversation about checking their mail in ballot status.
“That’s been the million dollar question here today. There is no tracking mechanism in Texas," Hancock said.
"We do not notify you if your ballot is accepted. We only notify those whose ballots are rejected.”
So basically, if you don’t get a letter about your ballot being rejected, you are good to go.
If someone does get that letter, though, it is likely too late to change anything.
Once a ballot gets to the board, there’s very little remedies for it if something is wrong with it.
Through what’s been a suspenseful process for many, Hancock said her team takes the mail in ballot process very seriously and wants voters to trust them.