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THREAD: Spent my night on Tuesday at the Baltimore City Voting Warehouse and for ppl asking "why is this taking so long???" there's a simpler answer than just 'states have different rules.'
While it is true that most states and counties DO have differing rules as to how and why and where and when mail-in votes are counted, the universal truth amongst all is that each ballot needs to be opened, signature checked, sorted, and run through a scan machine.
Most election board websites say this process takes a while longer than a traditional in-person-as-you-go type system that people are used to on Election Day traditionally. How much longer, I'm not sure, but significantly enough to impact how long this has been dragging on.
All that to say, this isn't illegal. This is the process. It's actually the process most legislatures put into effect not too long ago, pre-covid in many cases. The issue there is no one saw THIS MANY mail-in/absentee ballots needing to be counted and relied on so heavily...
...particularly from so many densely populated areas. As most states do election counting by county, it makes perfect sense that a rural county in MD like Washington or Garrett would take less time to count less mail-in votes than Baltimore City or Baltimore County would.
This is far truer in places like Philadelphia County where there's hundreds of thousands of mail-in/absentee ballots flooding one building to be counted painstakingly. I've covered elections in Philly before. Those results come in QUICKLY on a typical Election Night.
