When polls close Tuesday night, election staffers across the country will go to work counting the millions of ballots.
Everything that happens after a voter turns in their ballot is called the canvas. It's a process with lots of steps, and it can take days or weeks to complete.
Veronica Degraffenreid, a former election official in Pennsylvania and North Carolina, spoke with Scripps News about what goes into the canvassing process.
"When the polls close on Election Day, it's really when the canvassing period begins. And what that means is that you are collecting all of the legal votes," said Degraffenreid.
Some states, like Maryland, allow the canvassing of mail-in ballots to start before Election Day. In Montgomery County, Maryland, bipartisan teams take the ballot out of the envelope and check to see if it was filled out properly. If a voter filled out the ballot with a pencil, the scanning machines won't be able to read it. In that case, the bipartisan team will call over another election official to be a third set of eyes when they cover the pencil marks with a pen.
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A ballot with unclear selections or extra markings might require adjudication, where bipartisan teams either agree on the voter's intent or agree that it's impossible to determine how that person intended to vote. In some cases, those teams will duplicate a voter's choices to a new ballot so it can be scanned by the tabulating machines.
Reconciliation happens after the counting is done. Officials compare the number of people who voted to the number of ballots they have to make sure everything matches.
Some jurisdictions regularly perform audits, and there are multiple types of audits that could be used to check the accuracy of election results. But in most cases, an audit is like a spot-check of the results.
"In North Carolina, two of those precincts are randomly selected, and the counties will go through, and they will do a hand-to-eye recount of maybe one or two contests. ... They will compare the hand-to-eye recount with the actual tabulated results from the voting equipment," explained Degraffenreid.
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But even then, the work might not be over. A recount could be automatically triggered by local laws in a close election, or it could be requested by a candidate. Like audits, recount procedures vary by state and local jurisdiction, but typically the procedure only occurs for the race in question, not the whole ballot.
The certification process is next. It's when results are authenticated. Depending on the race, it could happen at the city or county level. All federal elections are certified by the state.
Degraffenreid stressed that the checks and balances built into the canvassing process ensure Americans can have faith in the accuracy of the final result. She told Scripps News she is absolutely confident the 2024 election results will be true and fair.
