What happens to early voting and mail-in ballots before Election Day?

BELMONT – Voting early or by mail have been popular options in Massachusetts. So how are those ballots processed?
According to the secretary of state’s office, 1,632,495 people have already voted in Massachusetts as of 4 p.m. Friday, four days before Election Day. That’s more than 30-precent of all registered voters in the state.
“We’re very happy about it,” said Secretary of State Bill Galvin. “I’ve been to some of the early locations, myself, and people are excited… They’re coming in with their children.”  
It’s a pandemic-era solution that has become permanent law in the state. Despite the convenience, some people have concerns about it.
So, how are early voting and mail-in ballots processed in Massachusetts?
WBZ-TV got a first-hand look at how they do it at Belmont’s town hall. That’s where a collection of volunteers and full-time workers have been logging mail-in and early voting ballots. It’s a process that’s far more complicated than you may think. They’re currently sorting through 4,000 mail-in ballots, all by hand.
So, what happens when your ballot is mailed into your local city or town hall, or dropped off in a ballot drop box? It goes something like this, depending on the city or town:
1. Open the envelope. 
2. Date stamp the post mailed envelope as well as the envelope containing the voter’s affidavit to vote by mail. These steps are done by hand with no computers involved. 
3. Verify signatures on the ballot with those on an application. “We are not handwriting specialists, so we do our best,” joked Belmont Town Clerk Ellen O’Brien Cushman. Volunteers and employees work to compare signatures while giving voters leeway for being in a rush or having a busy day. 
4. If the signature is accepted, the name is entered into the central voter registry, meaning that person’s name is checked off as having already voted – to ensure they don’t cast two votes by two different methods. 
5. Ballot envelopes are then alphabetized. (Yes, they are still in the envelopes at this point.) 
6. Ballots envelopes are opened. 
7. Ballots are flattened. 
8. Ballots are stored in locked boxes and kept in a locked vault until Election Day.
The ballots can’t be counted until Election Day. No vote is recorded until then. 
The ballots are simply prepared for tabulation before they are run through the actual machines for results, and combined with day-of results, after 8 p.m. on election night. 
“That’s the only time we’re allowed to count,” O’Brien Cushman told WBZ. 
Of course, there are some hiccups. In Belmont, about 200 ballots of 4,000 received by mail have been rejected for any reason – a forgotten signature, a mailing issue, or something else. 
“[It’s a] very small number but to each one of those voters it’s pretty important,” said O’Brien Cushman. They are given a chance to vote again. 
In the meantime, voters and other residents are still coming to the clerk’s office with a variety of needs. WBZ witnessed at least ten people arrive in one hour with needs from staff who were working to log incoming ballots.
“I think it’s a great privilege to just be able to get that vote in early,” said Dan Svedberg, a Belmont voter who put his ballot in the box on Tuesday.
Galvin agrees. He told WBZ his department is allotted up to $6 million this year to cover the cost of processing early ballots. 
“It’s expensive,” he explained. “I mean, democracy isn’t cheap, but that’s OK.”
Galvin feels Massachusetts’ new program is a beacon for the rest of the country as an example of voter access. 
“I think we have proven that it works,” he said. “We’ve shown that you can have both the integrity of the process, the security of the process, making sure that votes are counted and there’s no misconduct. You can do it. It takes work and it takes coordination, but you can do it.”
• October 26 was the last day to register to vote • Friday, November 1 is the last day to vote early in person • Tuesday, November 5 is the absolute last day to post mark your mail-in ballot • Tuesday, November 5 is Election Day where you can vote in-person 
If you have a question you’d like us to look into, please email [email protected].