903,279 Massachusetts Ballots Are Already In. About 409,000 Mail Ballots Are Not, and Final Results Won't Be Certified Until Nov. 18

More than 900,000 Massachusetts voters had already cast ballots in the Nov. 3 state election by Wednesday afternoon, according to figures released by the Secretary of the Commonwealth's office, and hundreds of thousands of mail ballots were still out.

As of 4 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 28, 903,279 ballots had been cast statewide, or 17.3% of the state's 5,230,765 registered voters, according to the state figures as reported by the Marblehead Independent. Of those, 653,548 came back by mail and 249,731 were cast in person during early voting. The counts reflect what local election officials had entered into the state voter database by that time, the Secretary's office said.

The total grew by 88,370 ballots in a single day, from 814,909 on Tuesday, a gain of 10.8%. In-person early voting continued through Friday, Oct. 30, so the final pre-Election Day count will be higher.

For scale: in the last governor's race, on Nov. 8, 2022, 2,511,461 ballots were cast, according to the Secretary's Elections Division results cited in the same report. The early and mail ballots already in equal 36.0% of that total, six days before Election Day.

The mail ballot numbers show what is still outstanding. The state had mailed 1,063,259 ballots, and 653,548, or 61.5%, had come back by Wednesday. That leaves 409,711 mail ballots not yet returned. Some of those voters will vote in person instead; a voter who has not returned a mail ballot may still vote early or at the polls, but under the Secretary's vote-by-mail guidance, the mail ballot is then rejected if it arrives afterward. A mail ballot cannot be dropped off at a polling place on Election Day.

Secretary of the Commonwealth William Francis Galvin urged voters to stop using the mail. "Within one week of Election Day, we always warn voters not to take the risk of mailing their ballot, if they are able to use a drop box instead," Galvin said Tuesday. "If you still have your mail-in ballot, you can bring it to a drop box or your local election office until 8 p.m. on Election Day." A ballot postmarked by Election Day still counts if it arrives by Nov. 6, his office said. Voters should use only a drop box in the city or town where they are registered.

The participation varies widely by community. Eastham on Cape Cod led the state at 35.8%, or 1,787 of 4,997 registered voters, according to the figures. Among the 163 municipalities with at least 10,000 registered voters, Mashpee led at 32.7%. In Boston, the city Election Department reported 39,352 ballots received by mail and early voting as of Oct. 25 and 26, out of 443,178 registered voters; those city figures are several days older than the state's and are not directly comparable.

The state does not publish the pre-Election Day figures by party or precinct, so they do not show which candidates or ballot questions those voters favored.

A separate advisory from Galvin's Elections Division to local election officials, Advisory 26-17, explains why the counting will not end on election night. Unofficial results announced at polling places do not include hand-counted ballots, provisional ballots, or ballots that will be counted at a post-election tabulation session, and election officers are instructed to say so when reading the totals aloud. A copy of each precinct's results tape must be posted outside the guardrail for public inspection.

The advisory sets out the later steps. Domestic mail ballots postmarked by Nov. 3 and received by 5 p.m. Nov. 6 are counted. Local officials have 12 days to resolve provisional ballots, which are cast when a voter's eligibility must be checked, and to add eligible ones to the final tally. Certain overseas ballots postmarked by Nov. 3 and received by 5 p.m. Nov. 13 must also be counted, and cannot be counted before then. The deadline for cities and towns to complete certification of results is Wednesday, Nov. 18.

The advisory also describes the hand count rules. Ballots are counted in public view by teams, with one poll worker reading the vote and another recording it; tally sheets are marked only in red pen or pencil; and every ballot is checked for write-in votes, including those not placed in the write-in compartment. Ballots the tabulator could not read are hand-counted in full.

For close races, those steps matter. A margin of a few thousand votes on election night can change as late mail, overseas and provisional ballots are added.

Unknown until the final tallies: how many of the 409,711 outstanding mail ballots will come back, and how many voters will turn out on Tuesday.