Montgomery County follow the process called Canvassing. Canvassing is the process of opening the ballots. A bipartisan canvassing board takes part in processing the ballots. Voter Services works with both political parties to recruit the Canvass Board. They receive training and must demonstrate proficiency in order to be scheduled to work on Election Day.
Steps taken to process each ballot:
- Bipartisan teams begin by opening the outside return envelope. The return envelope is set aside so it cannot be linked to the ballot.
- Next, they open the middle envelope or secrecy envelope which contains the ballot.
- The secrecy envelope is then opened and the ballot is taken out.
- The secrecy envelope is set aside and then the ballot is unfolded and flattened to make it easier to be read by the scanners.
- The last step is to scan the ballot through the high-speed scanners to record each vote
Results are uploaded to the county website and Department of State beginning after the polls close. This process will continue until each eligible ballot is able to be counted.