SACRAMENTO, Calif — Each state handles voting separately.
While counting ballots after election day is typical, election officials were expecting a delay in counting due to the pandemic, which is why they were given additional time this year.
Sacramento County Registrar of Voters Courtney Bailey-Kanelos said they could start processing ballots earlier due to the pandemic.
"Normally, it's 10 business days before we're able to start," Bailey-Kanelos said.
While California could start processing ballots days before the election, Pennsylvania, as an example, had to wait until election day to begin counting mail-in ballots.
Sacramento County could go through thousands of mail-in ballots in seconds. Election officials would then manually verify a ballot if signatures don't match what's on file. However, the county's responsibility is to reach out to the voter if there is an error on the ballot like a mismatched signature.
"People forgot to sign their return envelope or their signature didn't match what we have on file," Bailey-Kanelos said. "We will be reaching out to those voters if we haven't already, so they have a chance to correct that."
Sacramento County election officials have until Dec. 1 to certify results.
A Pew Research Center conducted a study that found 50% of President Donald Trump supporters would vote in-person on election day, compared to 20% of former Vice President Joe Biden's supporters said they would vote in-person.
The same study showed more than half of Biden supporters planned to either vote by mail or as an absentee. That could perhaps explain why recent headlines the later results are favoring Biden.
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