Election Day may be over, but the process of making results official is still underway in Bexar County and across Texas.
Election night returns provide an initial picture of the vote, but election officials must still process eligible ballots that were not included in the first results. That includes certain late-arriving mail ballots, provisional ballots and mail ballots with defects voters were allowed to correct.
For some domestic mail ballots, the deadline is 5 p.m. Wednesday. Those ballots may be counted if they were properly postmarked or received a carrier receipt mark by 7 p.m. on Election Day.
Military and overseas voters using a Federal Post Card Application have until Nov. 9 for their ballots to arrive, which is also the deadline for some voters to correct certain defects involving their mail-ballot carrier envelopes.
The ballot board must complete its review and counting of specified late, provisional and corrected envelope ballots by Nov. 16.
Then comes the canvass, the formal process used to verify election results.
“The media calls it, and then the canvass becomes the official kind of certification process,” said Juan Sepulveda, a former Trinity University political science professor. “So not surprisingly, there are a number of kind of pieces that are built into the law that have very specific deadlines and steps in the process.”
For local races, Texas law requires the local canvass to take place between Nov. 6 and Nov. 17. That local canvass is the final step for those races.
Bexar County had not publicly confirmed its specific canvass date as of Wednesday.
The county’s elections office can also provide the local number of provisional ballots and other eligible ballots still awaiting review. However, a county spokesperson said nobody will be made available to the media the rest of the week.
Statewide, district and federal races follow a separate timeline. The state canvass window runs from Nov. 21 through Dec. 7.
The process is designed to ensure every eligible ballot is considered before election results are certified, especially in races where small vote margins could matter.
“The easiest way to kind of think about it is just counting up the ballots,” Sepulveda said. “It’s literally, we’re canvassing. We’re going to go through what we have there and we’ve got to count them and we’ve got to check.”
Sepulveda said the additional review also gives voters and candidates confidence that the final totals are accurate.
“It’s a notion of accountability and trust,” Sepulveda said.
Election officials cannot complete the canvass until they have finished the required ballot review. That means Election Day projections and unofficial returns can change as eligible ballots are added, though whether any race changes depends on the margin and the number of outstanding ballots.
For Bexar County voters, the next major milestone is the local canvass, which must occur no later than Nov. 17.
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