Early voting and grace period registration is still ongoing at the Warren County Courthouse leading up to the November 8th General Election. As of November 2nd, 460 Warren County residents have voted early, while 608 have mailed in their ballots. Clerk and Recorder Tina Conard, who will be retiring November 30th, explains the process of counting vote by mail ballots:
“Once the ballot is returned, it is in a sealed certification envelope and we compare the signature on the certification envelope to the signature we have on file. That is something we are required by law to do. We mark the ballot returned in our voting system and the still sealed ballot is placed in a file cabinet until we are ready to process them. When we are ready to process them, they are in piles. We don’t do one at a time. This week I had one Democrat and one Republican judge, they opened the envelopes, they leave the ballots folded and set them off to the side, and then once all the envelopes are open and the ballots are pulled out, they unfold the ballot, they have to initial it, again that is a requirement by law, even at the polls. Then they process and tabulate them.”
Mail in ballots must be postmarked Election Day and are then counted up to two weeks after the election. Ballots may also be dropped off at the Courthouse drop box until 7 pm election night. The Warren County Courthouse will be open for early voting with special hours Saturday, November 5th 8 am to noon and open Monday, November 7th 8 am to 4:30 pm. Polls will be open on Election Day, Tuesday, November 8th, 6 am to 7 pm.
