Election Day is in the rearview mirror, but that doesn’t mean all votes have been tallied. Lancaster County Election Commissioner Dave Shively told KLIN News about the various kinds of ballots that remain to be accounted for.
“We do have some absentee ballots that were returned to us yesterday that we need to account for and tabulate and get those processed, which we hope to do by the end of [Nov. 10],” said Shively. “We also have some ballots which we call ‘resolution ballots.’ Resolution ballots are ballots that our counting machines were unable to read on election day.”
Shively says the most logical reason for resolution ballots are stray marks on ovals and ballots that might get damaged when they go through the counting machines. As a result, the Election Commissioner’s Office needs to work to resolve these issues so the machine can actually count the ballots.
Shively adds that the sheer number of races in this year’s election – some voters saw as many as 35 – increases the chances of resolution ballots.
But the outstanding votes don’t stop there. There are also provisional ballots, which are not counted immediately. The office will begin processing those on Wednesday, Nov. 9.
“There’s about 1,900 of those,” says Shively. “Maybe just a little under 1,900. That’s a very tedious process, because we have to go through each one individually, make sure they didn’t vote at their previous location, and if they met all the qualifications to vote a provisional ballot. We have to have that done by [Nov. 18].”
Shively reckons his team will likely need the entire period between now and Nov. 18 to tabulate the provisional ballots. He expects the Canvassing Board to certify all elections “right before” Thanksgiving.