There’s been a lot of confusion surrounding the mail-in ballot process in Butler County; especially in regards to how they’ll be counted, when they’ll be counted, and what deadlines they’re following.
County Commissioner Leslie Osche told our newsroom that the counting process will start Tuesday morning.
“Every ballot that is here or anything arrives [on Tuesday] will be counted,” Osche said.
However, those following along with the returns on the county’s website will not see those votes immediately tabulated. Instead the county will be reporting results from polling precincts first, and then add the mail-in ballots.
“We really would like to do it in buckets,” Osche said. “So, the poll results will be posted, then the mail results, and then the provisionals will be posted after that.”
Osche also said that despite online rumors, the county will be counting ballots beginning at 7 a.m. Osche said the final reporting of the those ballots will depend how far along the Elections Bureau is in the process.
“If we’re 80 percent of the way through those mail-in ballots, we’ll finish the count,” Osche said. “But, if we’re only 40 to 50 percent completed, we’ll pick it up early Wednesday morning.”
“We have pusehd the elections director and staff hard for the past few weeks,” Osche said. “They have been up ridiculous amounts of hours. If we try to push through the whole night, they’ll just never make it.”
There has been guidance from the state to include any ballots that come in between Wednesday through Friday into a “segregated” category in case the U.S. Supreme Court were to overrule its initial ruling allowing the extended deadline.
It’s unclear when all of those ballots will be reported.
Again, officials urge patience with the election process.
According to Commissioner Kevin Boozel, there have been more than 30,000 mail-in ballots received so far by the county.
