Counting absentee ballots 11.4.20

Chelsea Smith gives us an inside look at the ballot counting process in Fayette county.

Look at the 20-20 election... election day is over... but the wait is not!

Like the race for president, some candidates in fayette county still are on pins and needles for the last of the absentee ballots to be counted... abc 36's chelsea smith spoke to the man in charge of that county and one of the candidates whose wait continues... ### the day after the election more than 4 thousand absentee ballots collected from the mail and drop boxes will be counted for fayette county... they will check in the ballot, confirming it has been received... and verify the signature "then the next step is to open the ballot package and to make sure everything is in order, if it is we eventually extract your ballot feed it into the scanner for you and then we are done."

:10 fayette county clerk don blevins says tuesday night one of the scanners failed... with 3000 ballots in it and they had to wait until wednesday for them to be rescanned "we have to have a judge's order before we can break the seal and take the ballots out."

:04 four urban county council races were on tuesday's ballot...three were close enough where the absentee ballots could matter...especially district 5 where liz sheehan and bill farmer were separated by just 16 votes... and with additional ballots arriving over the next few days... the votes could mean everything "if we have a race that is separated by single digits, you know, those last straggler ballots that will come in friday, saturday, and monday they could still affect the race."

:11 sheehan says while anxious for the results... every vote matters "from my perspective i was always kind of telling people we might not know that night and so i had mentally prepared for it that we might not have the results."

:09 blevins says while the final certification is november 10... they will update the their numbers this friday... "i'm excited and a tiny bit stressed, but trying to stay calm and just hanging out with my family to stay grounded in this moment."

:09 in lexington... chelsea smith... abc 36