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A CLOSER LOOK: How votes are counted in Iowa

The county canvass has to be done by Monday, Nov. 9.

DES MOINES, Iowa — In Iowa the vote counting looks a little different than other states. Starting the day before the election, election workers across the state started opening up absentee ballots and running them through machines.

They got all of those ballots that were in their offices tallied up the end of election day. But the counting is still going on.

That's because absentee ballots postmarked by Nov. 2, coming through the mail, can still be processed and counted through noon on Nov. 9.

Election workers are also going through all those provisional ballots---ballots that were set aside because a voter might have forgotten their I.D. and was allowed to vote anyway.

The county auditors are responsible for tracking down those voters and working through the issues to see if the provisional ballot is eligible and can be counted....or if it needs to be thrown out. The county canvass has to be done by Nov. 9. 

The canvass includes information for every ballot cast on election day, every on-time absentee ballot, every accepted provisional ballot, and every on-time military or overseas ballot. Those numbers are tallied up and submitted to the secretary of state.

Bottom line: There's still some work left to be done by the 99 county auditors in Iowa over the weekend.

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