How votes are counted in Allegheny County

Where your ballot is scanned depends on how you cast it.In Allegheny County, votes cast in person on Election Day are scanned at local voting precincts, and mail-in ballots are scanned at a central warehouse run by county employees.The counting process begins at 7 a.m. on Election Day when county employees begin the process of opening and scanning more than 200,000 mail-in ballots at a county-run warehouse. This warehouse has been under guard around the clock since ballots arrived, and a county official said there will be a large police presence inside and outside the building on Election Day.Mail-in ballot envelopes are checked twice for a proper date and signature before being opened and then the ballots within are fed into high-speed scanners that can process 50,000 sheets per hour. The scanners load results onto two USB drives and the ballots themselves are kept as a backup.Since the scanners are in the same building as the election night reporting network, the county is usually able to upload the results from these ballots almost immediately after polls close. There are 1,327 voting precincts in Allegheny County, spread among 766 locations (some locations house multiple precincts). Each precinct has a ballot scanner,...