Time to count: Local officials detail counting absentee ballots

Posted By: finleys
November 5, 2020 @ 3:39 am
Rochester

ROCHESTER, N.Y. (WROC) — In Monroe County, 97,000 absentee ballots could make or break some races. The Board of Elections is busy processing those ballots and also pulling thousands of affidavit ballots for counting.

The board needs to report the number of affidavit ballots they have to New York State within 48 hours of Election Night and that was the focus at the Board of Elections Service Center in Henrietta on Wednesday. Republican Elections Commissioner Lisa Nicolay said affidavit ballots are used if someone shows up to vote and their registration can’t be found in the system. Each ballot is researched by a bipartisan team and will judged by the commissioners on November 12.

“To see if they did an affidavit at the correct location, where their address is, if they were formerly registered, if they’re registered in another county within New York State, those are things we could count that ballot for but if someone did it just because they missed the deadline or something like that, it’s probably not gonna count,” Nicolay said of the affidavit process.

The other process happening now is absentee ballot processing at City Place in downtown Rochester.

“They will be reviewed as far as inspection, so for proper signatures, and they will be scanned into the system so we have an electronic version of all of the oath envelopes,” said Democratic Elections Commissioner Jackie Ortiz.

There are seven different issues with oath envelope signatures that can try to be “cured.” If a ballot falls into one of these categories, the board contacts the voter and they have a certain amount of time to fix the issue and send it back.

After all ballots are processed, the board will begin checking to make sure those who voted absentee didn’t also vote another way.

“There is a specific calendar that is provided to us in New York State for which we adhere to regarding the absentee process. It is not anything that is new,” Ortiz said of the process.

Once processing, scrubbing, and researching is complete, absentee and affidavit ballots will be opened and counted in the machine. They will be counted on November 16 and can be received by the board up until that day for federal and military voters, and until November 10 for all other voters. Absentee ballots had to be postmarked by November 3.

Counting the ballots continues on Wednesday, Nov. 4, 2020. (News 8 Photo/KAYLA GREEN)

Ortiz said this high volume of absentee ballots could sway a race, and said she still thinks it is premature to call anything at this time.

“When you look at the breakdown, yes, absentees do lean more towards the Democrat submissions but again you are disregarding all of the other parties and when I say that I mean specifically the blanks,” she said.

As of November 4, 97,001 absentee ballots have been returned to the board and the breakdown is: