With record-breaking early voting in the books in New York, voters have one more day to postmark or drop off their absentee ballot.
Dozens of election workers were already working Monday processing the thousands of absentee ballots that have already been returned to the Board of Elections. The ballots can't legally be counted until Nov. 10, but sorting is needed first in Yaphank.
Things start with a timestamp on the envelopes as they come in. Later on, high-speed scanners will be utilized to count the ballots.
"It's quite laborious -- we expect to process three times the number of absentee ballots this year compared to four years ago," says Suffolk Republican Board of Elections Commissioner Nick LaLota. "We've sent out about 200,000 absentee ballots, received back 125,000 so far."
Monday marked the last day to apply for an absentee ballot in-person at your county's Board of Elections. The absentee ballot has to be postmarked by Nov. 3 or can be dropped off in-person. Drop boxes will be at every polling place in both Nassau and Suffolk on Election Day.
If you mailed in your absentee ballot instead of dropping it off, you can call your county Board of Elections to make sure it arrived. It's advised you give seven days from the day you mailed it before calling.
When it comes to results, LaLota says he doesn't expect many local elections to be called on election night.
"I would caution the public to not take the machine results as the final determination of who won which election, and in fact only the reddest of red, or the bluest of blue districts, will actually be called on election night, I expect," says LaLota.
LaLota says he knows from experience that the closer a race tends to be, the more lawyers get involved, lengthening the process even more.
He says he hasn't made any plans before Thanksgiving in anticipation.