Vermont Secretary of State Jim Condos says he expects the state will have unofficial election results on the evening of the Aug. 11 primary, as usual, despite the fact that more voters than ever before are casting ballots by mail.
He also predicted at a Monday morning press conference that the state may break a voter participation record this primary election. As of Monday morning, the state received 104,000 absentee ballots. The record was set in 2016 with about 120,000 ballots cast in a primary election.
Election officials in some states have predicted that a surge in mail voting prompted by the Covid-19 pandemic could lead to delays in election results elsewhere. That surge is happening in Vermont, but Condos does not share those concerns.
“We’re really not expecting anything different,” Condos said last week. “I think it’s going to be pretty straightforward.”
Condos said town and city clerks will have plenty of time to process the absentee ballots that arrive before the primary. In the directive Condos signed last month, town clerks were given permission to start counting absentee ballots 30 days ahead of elections.
But election results won’t be made public, or viewed by other local officials, until election night, he said.
“Nobody processing those ballots will know what the results are as they go,” Condos said. “The only thing they will see or know is how many ballots went in, and that’s it.”
As of Monday morning, the state received about 150,000 requests for absentee ballots. Just over 104,000 of those have been returned to town clerks.
The number of absentee ballot requests suggests primary participation in Vermont this year could easily surpass turnout in the 2018 August election, when about 107,000 Vermonters cast ballots. In 2018 and 2016 combined, Vermonters requested only 40,000 absentee ballots.
In some states, the rapid increase in voting by mail has already delayed election results.
In Georgia, which had a primary in June, election results were delayed for days. Local election officials were overwhelmed by a surge in absentee ballots, and still counting thousands of ballots a week after the election, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
In New York City, two congressional races remain undecided weeks after the June primary, as city officials have struggled to count 400,000 mail-in ballots, the New York Times reported.
Ballots were invalidated because they were missing postmarks, and thousands were discarded for minor errors. Some local election boards in New York didn’t start counting ballots until weeks after the primary.
Because of delays associated with the vote by mail system, the U.S. may not have results for the presidential election until days or weeks after Nov. 3.
Condos, who has a clear path to his fifth reelection this fall, isn’t expecting those kinds of hiccups in Vermont.
The secretary of state said Vermont’s rules for accepting absentee ballots are “much more lenient” than in other states. Ballots are typically only rejected if voters fail to fill out and sign an envelope certifying their identity.
“I mean we don’t have a lot of restrictions. But some of the states have some real severe restrictions,” Condos said. “And I would go so far as to say some of those restrictions are almost to the edge of voter suppression.”
Condos also referred to Vermont’s election laws, which require that local officials receive ballots by 7 p.m. In other states, ballots can still be received days after an election as long as they’re postmarked on or before election day, he added.
“That delays it automatically by doing that,” Condos said.
Condos had urged Vermonters to put their ballots in the mail by Aug. 3 to ensure that they would arrive by the deadline for mailing them in, 5 p.m. Monday, Aug. 10.
If an absentee ballot had not been mailed back by that date, Condos said, voters can bring their ballots to their town clerks or to their polling place before 7 p.m. on Aug. 11.
At Monday’s presser, Condos said this year’s increased absentee voting has definitely been affected by the pandemic, but added it could also have to do with the hotly contested lieutenant governor and governor elections.
“I’m excited by the amount of the turnout so far,” Condos said. “And I’m hopeful that we will have an increased turnout. That’s always my goal.”
Grace Elletson contributed reporting.
CORRECTION: The deadline for mail-in ballots was Monday, not Tuesday as originally stated. Voters can drop off ballots at the polls or cast ballots in person today.
