Harris County Clerk explains how quick mail-in votes will be counted on Election Day
HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) -- With weeks to go until Election Day, Harris County Clerk Chris Hollins has been touring voting sites now that early voting is up and running.
The county has already received more than 30,000 mail-in votes. On Wednesday, the Early Voting Ballot Board will start to process the mail-in votes.
"Those are processed, those envelopes are taken off, the signatures are checked and so forth," Hollins said.
RELATED: Harris County shatters record for first day of early voting in country
Texas is one of a handful of states that begin processing the mail ballots before Election Day, but they're not officially counted until then.
"Those results are kept secretly and securely, but on Election Day those (results) will be tabulated and we're going to report them on election night," Hollins explained.
He adds those, along with the early voting results, should be reported around 7 p.m. on Nov. 3. Some states don't process mail ballots until Election Day, which Hollins says could take days to get results for.
Hollins said the number of mail ballots is doubled what it was in 2016.
"We've seen a huge interest in mail-in ballots this year," he added.
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