The County of Berks has announce that it has finished processing more than 10,500 mail-in ballots for Tuesday’s municipal primary election.
A team of roughly 30 County employees worked to open and tabulate the mail-in ballots at the Santander Arena, starting around 8am and wrapping up shortly before 4pm.
What is the process for mail-in ballots? The ballots are first separated by precinct, then fed through cutting machines to open the outer envelopes.
Employees then remove the security envelopes from the outer envelopes. The ballots are then sent back through the cutters to have the security envelopes opened.
The ballots are then removed from the security envelopes and flattened before they are fed through the tabulators which scan the votes.
The mail-in ballot vote results will be uploaded to the County’s election results page shortly after 8pm, when the polls officially close.
Mail-in ballots can still be dropped off until 8pm at the County’s drop boxes, which are located at the Services Center and Agricultural Center. Ballots that are dropped off today will be processed and tabulated Wednesday.
