Missouri Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft is hopeful that every vote cast Tuesday, by mail or by in-person absentee in this presidential election will be counted before Election Day is over. That’s despite Missouri voters casting a record number of mail-in and absentee ballots in this election.
At last count, about 900,000 voters had cast a ballot before Election Day. That’s approximately three times more than the state has had before. And those votes were not able to be tabulated by election workers until Tuesday.
Missouri should have unofficial results Tuesday night, according to Ashcroft.
“There could be some of those, like those military ballots that are allowed to come in by Friday at noon—some of those could be outstanding, but they’re generally a very small percentage. So, unless we have kind of a razor thin race between two, which we could have, we will actually know unofficially who won.”
Local election authorities have two weeks after the election to report their certified results to the Secretary of State, and the Secretary’s Office must certify the state results by Dec. 8.
He reminded voters that they have until 7 Tuesday night to vote, and if they are in line at 7, they will be allowed to cast their ballot.
"So, if you and a crowd of 500 people show up at the poll at 6:59, but you're all registered voters waiting there at 6:59, you will be allowed to vote, and your vote will count," Ashcroft said.
Despite President Donald Trump raising concerns about voter fraud in this presidential election, Ashcroft assured Missouri voters their votes will be counted. He pointed to the August election, which he called a test run for this election, and which he said went smoothly, and to other elections that have been held during the pandemic.
"We've done it three times already this year safety, easily, securely, and we're going to do it a fourth time because of our 116 election authorities and thousands of poll workers that are the voters' friends and neighbors," Ashcroft said.