Election-Campaign Law

CO Count likely to be delayed due to mail in ballots

By Paul Gronke

I hate to do an “I told you so” but I have warned reporters that there are three states I would watch for slow counts this year.  Each of them only recently adopted no-excuse absentee voting, and I was concerned that they were not prepared for the avalanche of paper they will receive.

I can walk through the many steps that an absentee ballots has to go through before it is actually tallied but a metaphor seems to work best.  Suppose you receive about 10 pieces of mail a day, and suddenly I deliver 10,000 to your door.  Will you mailbox hold them?  Where will you store them?  How will you open them?

Today’s story in the Denver Post confirms this for Colorado.  The other two states I’d keep my eye on is Ohio and New Jersey.

We already know from the past that tallies in California will be delayed a few days, and Washington state about a week.  This is all due to the complexities of processing absentee ballots.

Full post as published by Election Updates on November 03, 2008 (boomark / email).