Nassau elections board might have results faster than normal

Waiting until after midnight for Nassau County election results may be a thing of the past if an experiment being attempted tonight by the Board of Elections is successful.

Election machines in Nassau County record votes onto two memory sticks, one for regular vote counting and one backup. Those sticks are then brought back to Mineola by Nassau County police or board of election inspectors from all corners of the county.

Tonight for the first time, after a polling site closes, the results of the backup memory stick will be transmitted to the Board of Elections.

“That first stick that gets pulled out is going to be brought to a completely separate iPad that is connected to a server at the board of elections,” Democratic Commissioner of the Nassau County Board of Elections James Scheuerman said Tuesday evening. The information on the sticks “will instantaneously be sent back to our server here. The hope is to cut down on the time it takes for our unofficial results.”

The regular count will proceed as it has in the past, Scheuerman said. Polls officially close at 9 p.m. but a person in line at 9 p.m. waiting to vote will still get to vote, he said. Once the sites close, the memory sticks are put into special bags and special locked bins containing the paper ballots that were accepted at each machine will be transported to the board of elections building and brought to a “hardened” room. There a bipartisan group of about 16 election workers will plug the memory sticks into the computers. This room is locked at 8 p.m., its windows are blacked out and computers inside are not connected to the internet, Scheuerman said.

The results from early voting and some mail-in ballots should be posted online around 9 p.m.

The results remain unofficial until the vote is certified, a process that can take several weeks.

To track who’s up or down, visit Newsday’s results page here.