Ballot Counting Process: How Your Vote Is Verified and Tallied

In recent years, many states have implemented changes to make voting more convenient than ever before.

For example, mail-in voting, traditionally reserved for absentee voters, has been made more widely available in some jurisdictions. In-person early voting has become another popular option. Provisional ballots are available for voters whose eligibility is questioned.

Given the different types of ballots and processes, it’s understandable when people have questions about how their ballot is verified. State legislators and election officials have adopted rigorous processes to ensure that only qualified voters vote and that no one votes more than once. For legal assistance on your voting rights, reach out to a local civil rights lawyer.

How Your Ballot Is Handled: Differences by Voting Method

While every state has its own way of handling ballots and/or electronic voting machine records, there are some common threads between the different procedures.

In-Person Election Day Voting

If you vote in person on Election Day or at an early voting station, your eligibility to vote is typically established by a poll worker at check-in, before you’re allowed to take a ballot or approach a voting machine.

At that point, you cast your vote, which is accepted, counted, and retained in accordance with state law.

The Role of Provisional Ballots

If there is any question about your eligibility, you will be given a provisional ballot. This is required under federal law.

You will be asked to fill out information, typically on an envelope, to help election workers determine whether you are eligible to vote. Your ballot will then be placed in the envelope. In some states, provisional ballots are further protected by an additional envelope or privacy sleeve inside the signature envelope.

Drop-Off and Mail-In Voting

If you vote by mail or drop off an absentee ballot at a dropbox, the process will typically be similar to that for a provisional ballot. You will fill out your eligibility information on an outer envelope, and your ballot — with or without a privacy sleeve — will go in that envelope. If you vote by mail, the whole package may then go into a final mailing envelope.

For mail, absentee, and provisional ballots, election officials will then follow a process similar to that on Election Day. First, they will “check you in” by verifying that you are a valid voter according to the information on the signature envelope. Next, they will remove your ballot from the signature envelope and place it in a pile with others being processed at the same time.

Only after the ballots have been separated from the signature envelopes are they counted, ensuring that nobody knows how you voted.

Ballot Verification Procedures: Signature Matching and Voter Eligibility Checks

For ballots received by mail, states have a variety of processes to verify the identity of the voter submitting the ballot:

• 32 states require that the voter’s signature on a mail ballot be compared with their voter registration record and/or absentee ballot application to ensure that there is a match
• 11 states require that mail ballots be signed by a notary public and/or one or more witnesses
• Some states require that absentee voters provide additional information to verify their identity, which may include a driver’s license or state ID number and/or photocopy, some or all of their Social Security number, or a utility bill or other piece of official mail addressed to them

In all states, any voter who is found to have signed an absentee ballot fraudulently can be prosecuted. While mail ballot fraud cases are extremely rare, prosecutions do occur and serve as an important deterrent.

The Tabulation Process: How Your Ballot Gets Counted

For voters who vote in person on Election Day, the vast majority of counties use either:

• Optically scanned fill-in-the-bubble paper ballots, which are filled out by hand and tabulated by machine
• Touch-screen direct recording electronic (DRE) systems, in which the person’s vote is an electronic record within a voting machine, which may provide a paper receipt verifying how they voted

Some states and counties still use hand-counted paper ballots, while in Colorado, Oregon, Washington, and certain counties in other states, all voting is done by mail.

Each state has its own method of tabulating mail ballots. Most states tabulate these ballots at a central location, but in most cases, the results are added to the precinct-level totals reported, sometimes broken out separately.

A few states send these ballots directly to the precinct or election district for inclusion in vote counting on election night. Meanwhile, in Iowa, North Dakota, South Carolina, South Dakota, and Virginia, absentee votes are generally tabulated at the county level, not the precinct level.

Variations in the Timing of Election Results

These differences between states can result in differences in the timing of how election results are reported to the public.

In some states, absentee and early votes are tabulated and reported before results from polling places are reported. In other states, the polling-place results come in first, while in others, all votes are reported at the same time.

Some states may also continue to report absentee ballots — especially military and overseas ballots — that arrive after Election Day.

How Do I Check the Status of My Ballot?

Almost all states have online tracking tools that allow voters who have cast mail-in, absentee, and/or early ballots to check whether their ballots were received and accepted.

Voters may also be able to check the status of provisional ballots, either through the same tool or a separate tool. In many states, this information is embedded in the same tool that voters can use to check other information, such as their voter registration status, polling place, and sample ballot.

What follows is a list of statewide trackers available by state.

State	Ballot Tracking Website
Alabama	Alabama Registration and Ballot Status Information
Alaska	Alaska Voter Information Lookup
Arizona	Arizona Ballot-by-Mail and Early Ballot Status Check Arizona also has a separate Provisional Ballot Tracker
Arkansas	Arkansas Registration and Ballot Status Tracker
California	California Voter Status Tracker
Colorado	Colorado Ballot Tracker
Connecticut	Connecticut Voter Registration and Absentee Ballot Lookup
Delaware	Delaware Registration and Ballot Status Tracker
District of Columbia	D.C. Ballot Tracker
Florida	Florida Vote-by-Mail Ballot Information and Status Lookup (list of links to county websites)
Georgia	Georgia My Voter Page
Hawaii	Hawaii Ballot Tracker
Idaho	Idaho Voter Information Lookup
Illinois	Illinois has no statewide tracker or index of county-level trackers for mail ballots. Your county website may have a tracker and/or a phone number you can call. Illinois does have a statewide Provisional Ballot Search)
Indiana	Indiana Voter Portal
Iowa	Iowa Track Your Absentee Ballot Search
Kansas	Kansas Registration Information and Mail-In Ballot Status
Kentucky	Kentucky Voter Information Center
Louisiana	Louisiana Voter Information
Maine	Maine Absentee Ballot Request Status
Maryland	Maryland Voter Lookup
Massachusetts	Massachusetts Ballot Tracker
Michigan	Michigan Voter Information Center
Minnesota	Minnesota Ballot Tracker
Mississippi	Mississippi Absentee or Affidavit Ballot Tracker
Missouri	Missouri has a Military and Overseas Voting Access Portal, but has no statewide tracker or index of county-level trackers for other types of mail ballots. Your county website may have a tracker and/or a phone number you can call.
Montana	Montana Voter Information Lookup
Nebraska	Nebraska Voter Information Lookup
Nevada	Nevada Ballot Tracker
New Hampshire	New Hampshire Voter Information Lookup
New Jersey	New Jersey Ballot Tracker
New Mexico	New Mexico Registration Information
New York	New York Mail Ballot Tracker
North Carolina	North Carolina Ballot Tracker North Carolina also has a separate Provisional Search
North Dakota	North Dakota Absentee/Mail Ballot Search
Ohio	Ohio Ballot Tracker
Oklahoma	Oklahoma Voter Portal
Oregon	Oregon My Vote Portal
Pennsylvania	Pennsylvania Election Ballot Status Pennsylvania also has a separate Provisional Ballot Search
Rhode Island	Rhode Island My Voter Record Rhode Island also has a separate Provisional Ballot Inquiry
South Carolina	South Carolina Voter Portal
South Dakota	South Dakota Voter Information Portal
Tennessee	Tennessee Voter Registration Lookup
Texas	Texas Voter Portal
Utah	Utah Ballot Tracker
Vermont	Vermont Voter Portal
Virginia	Virginia Citizen Portal
Washington	Washington Voter Registration and Ballot Management Portal
West Virginia	West Virginia Absentee Ballot Tracking West Virginia also has a separate Provisional Ballot Search
Wisconsin	Wisconsin Voter Info
Wyoming	Wyoming has no statewide tracker or index of county-level trackers for mail ballots. Your county website may have a tracker and/or a phone number you can call.

Curing Your Ballot: Legal Rights To Fix Ballot Errors

In most jurisdictions, a voter whose absentee ballot is rejected has the right to “cure” their ballot before, on, or shortly after Election Day.

A majority of states require election officials to notify voters if their ballots are rejected. At that point, the voter may be prompted to provide additional information, by mail or in person at their county election office, to prove that they are who they say they are and are eligible to vote at the address from which they are voting. A voter whose mail ballot is rejected may also be able to vote in person on Election Day.

Canvassing and Certification: How Unofficial Results Become Final

The results that are reported on the night of the election and in the days after are considered unofficial. The process of making those results official is known as certification.

The first step in certifying election results is the canvass. This is a process that involves cross-checking records such as the number of voters who checked in on Election Day or at any early voting station, the number of mail ballots received, and the results from the tabulation machines and/or hand counts.

If the numbers don’t match, further investigation may be needed to determine why. If the election results are close enough, the law may require a recount, or a candidate may request one. In some states, a post-election audit (as further described below) may be required before certification.

Once the canvass and any other required processes are completed, election results are usually certified at both the local and state levels.

Post-Election Audits: Legal Requirement for Accuracy Checks

In all states except Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi, the law requires an audit after an election to verify that the state’s counting methods produce accurate results.

The gold standard for post-election audits is a risk-limiting audit, which an increasing number of states have adopted in recent years. A risk-limiting audit can only be performed in a state that uses paper ballots, and it involves spot-checking paper ballots against the reported election results until officials can be statistically confident that the results are accurate.

In states that do not conduct risk-limiting audits, specific districts or voting machines are typically selected, and the votes are retabulated to verify that the new tally matches the initial results. Any discrepancies will trigger additional auditing and possibly a full recount.

Find Legal Help

If you suspect issues with your ballot, reach out to your local or state election officials, or you can seek advice from a civil rights lawyer in cases when your voting rights are being violated.