YELLOWSTONE COUNTY — With Election Day just days away, most voters' involvement ends the moment they drop off their ballot. But for election workers in Yellowstone County, that's where the work begins.
Watch the full walk-through below:
For voters, the process can feel as simple as slipping a ballot into a drop box. But once that ballot goes in, there's a lot the public doesn't see.
Yellowstone County Elections Administrator Dayna Causby walked me through each step, starting with signature verification.
"Every single ballot that comes into Yellowstone County and Montana, your signature is verified," Causby said Friday. "The only reason to reject a ballot is if a signature is missing or is mismatched."
Once a ballot comes out of the drop box, it passes through the hands of more than 15 people working in teams of two. The ballots are counted, checked, then checked again before the envelopes are opened and the ballots are prepared to be counted.
"Once they get accepted, they go through an audit process to make sure that every ballot that we said we accepted in that batch is in that batch. It goes through that audit process twice, actually," Causby said.
"We lay them flat, we count them out, they go through an additional two audit processes to make sure that all those ballots that we said were in there when we accepted them in are ready for tabulation," Causby said.
On Monday, ballots come to the tabulation machines, where they are sorted into bins.
"The bottom bin are for all the perfect ballots...The second bin are for any ballots that have a write-in on them...The top bin are for any of our ballots that might have an issue," Causby said.
An issue doesn't mean a ballot is simply tossed out.
"Those ballots go out to a resolution board, which is a board of three people from different political parties. They remake that ballot as the voter intended," Causby said.
Even after a ballot goes through the machine, the checking isn't over.
"It actually goes through the post-election audit procedure where we will make sure that the machine's tabulated like the ballot said it tabulated," Causby said.
Through every step, Causby said there's a record of where the ballots have been.
"We always use chain of custody forms throughout that process. So that's how those ballots are maintained and the integrity of the process is maintained," Causby said.
It's a lot of steps behind something that takes a voter only a few seconds. One of those voters, Cynthia Hill, said casting a ballot is about being heard.
"I think your voice does matter, and people don't realize that because people feel small right now, and your voice is big and your voice does matter especially for the future generations that are coming," Hill said.
For first-time voter Monica Chesarek, those few seconds meant something more.
"I feel really accomplished. I feel like an adult. I feel responsible, and I feel like my voice, as little as it might feel, is there," Chesarek said.
One ballot, multiple checks, and one more voice added to the count.
"Everybody has a voice, and if you don't use it, then you leave it up to other people to make your decisions for you," Chesarek said.
