Suffolk Elections Board To Count Absentee Ballots Monday

SUFFOLK COUNTY, NY — The Suffolk County Board of Elections on Monday will start counting absentee ballots from the Nov. 3 election, according to Republican Commissioner Nick LaLota.

LaLota previously said the board was expected to start counting this week.

The board will start counting once it has completed comparing signatures on absentee ballots to the signatures it has on file and discarded the absentee ballots of those who also voted on a machine.

As of Wednesday, the elections board received 168,004 absentee ballots. According to the New York Board of Elections website, the state requires absentee ballots to be postmarked by Nov. 3 and received by the elections board by Nov. 10.

Out of those ballots that were received, 657 were canceled and 1,307 were registered as inactive. There are 39,720 outstanding ballots.

On Nov. 6, Suffolk County Legislative Presiding Officer Rob Calarco released this statement:

This year, a record number of Americans cast their ballots for Election Day. During a worldwide pandemic, voters across the country were determined to make their voices heard, and that includes Suffolk County, where I expect we will experience a record turnout. Locally there are more than 145,000 absentee and provisional ballots left to count. Legally ballots can be received by November 10, and only if they were postmarked by Election Day. The bipartisan Board of Elections expects to start counting ballots on or around November 16. Until then, we must be patient and let the election officials complete this process.