New York cannot count your absentee ballot until the election passes. That is the law.

¯ Typically, mail-in ballots represent 5% of New York’s vote, so except in the case of very close elections, absentees do not normally figure in to who wins or loses. This year, due to the pandemic and a relaxing of absentee voting rules in New York by the governor, absentees in Chautauqua County are expected to account for close to 20% of the vote in Chautauqua County.

¯ Voter registrations in New York are portable. Registered to vote in New York City and moved to another county, the registration is portable as late as Election Day by voting by affidavit ballot.

¯ The entire state must weigh in on who voted by affidavit or in person at the new polling location so that previously cast absentees in a former county can be set aside and not counted by the former county. The state Board of Elections states it will take several days to gather up this information and thus Chautauqua County absentees cannot be counted without the information that its absentee voters cast ballots elsewhere in the state.

¯ Other states in the USA have county centric registration databases and do not allow absentees to vote on Election Day. Thus, they can count early arriving absentees and then add them into the Election Day totals.

¯ The deadline for a voter to deliver or postmark an absentee ballot is Election Day. That is new this year. All absentee ballots must be received no later than seven days follow any election. Except military and overseas voters for November General elections have 13-days to arrive at our elections office.

¯ Chautauqua County has invested in two high-speed absentee ballot counters and absent court intervention, will have all ballots counted that have been received no later than a week after the election. Absentee totals will be added to Early Voting and Election Day totals. Military and overseas voter ballots received after seven days will be added to the totals for a certification of election results before Thanksgiving.

Finally, the presumption in New York Election Law is that everyone is going to vote in person on Election Day, except that the voter may vote absentee if needed. In other states, the voter cannot vote on Election Day if they have already voted by absentee ballot.

Chautauqua County unofficial vote totals will be available starting at 9 p.m. Election Day at votechautauqua.com beginning with the publishing of early voting totals and followed through the late evening with the various election district totals from around the county.

Seven days after the election — Nov. 10 — absentee and affidavit ballots will be added to the voting totals. A final addition of military and overseas returned voted ballots will be added to the totals 13 days after the election.

Barring any judicial intervention, final certified totals of county votes will be released sometime before Thanksgiving.

Norman P. Green and Brian Abram are Chautauqua County election commissioners.