Canvassing Of Frederick County Mail-In Ballots Begins Thursday

Certification scheduled for Friday, Nov. 18th.Frederick, Md (KM) The canvassing of mail-in ballots will begin on Thursday, November 10th. Frederick County Election Director Barbara Wagner says the process will start at 10:00 AM at the Elections Office at 340A Montevue Lane. “We have a large amount of mail-in ballots that are left to count. And so, canvassing,  we’ll be counting those mail-in ballots that we still have that people have sent in,” she says.Wagner says about 16,000 mail-in ballots need to be counted. “We continue to receive mail-in ballots through the US Post Office up and until the 18th of November before we certify as long as they postmarked by November eighth,” she says.Thursday’s canvassing will take place from 10:00 AM until 5:00 PM  with a break for lunch between 12:30 PM and 1:30 PM. “That will give us time to upload all the images and feed all the results so we can have those results posted on our website by eight-o-clock,” says Wagner.Canvassing will also take place on Friday, November 11th, Veterans Day,  and Saturday, November 12th. between 8:30 AM until 6:00 PM. The process will continue the following week, from November 14th through the 18th.Citizens are invited  to come and watch the canvassing process. Wagner says they need to sign in after arriving at 340A  Montevue Lane. “There’s particular rules that are posted throughout the room that just say you’re not allowed to use a cell phone, you can’t take pictures, that type of thing,” she says.Certification is scheduled for Friday, November 18th. “We first have to have a provisional canvass,” says Wagner. “The Board of Elections looks at all the provisional ballots, and determines whether they can be accepted, or rejected for whatever reason.”The Frederick County Board of Elections started some canvassing prior to early voting. “We were allowed to pre-canvas mail-in ballots before election day. We took the opportunity on October 17th, 18th and 19th to get started early with the counting of the ballots,” says Wagner. She says the Board counted less than 4,000 ballots, and that count was reflected in the election results released on Tuesday.By Kevin McManus