CHICAGO (WBBM NEWSRADIO) -- If you’ve been continually checking the Cook County Clerk’s website to see where your mailed-in ballot is in the system, officials say "don’t worry."
Deputy Clerk of Elections for Cook County Edmund Michalowski said even though the clerk’s website may say “not returned” under the "Ballot Received By Clerk" column, it does not mean the clerk’s office has not received your ballot.
"That 'not returned' vernacular is really just showing that it hasn’t been run through the scanner as of yet, the first sorting machine," he said.
Michalowki said it may just be that the ballot is waiting to be scanned and have its voter signature verified.
"We want to dismiss anything in the public that would make people feel uncomfortable. Once the URL show it’s delivered (by the USPS), we have that ballot in hand," he said.
Voters who choose can see on the County Clerk's website where in the pipeline the ballot is when the postal service is moving it. The website also shows the "delivery date".
But, for official purposes, the Cook County Clerk's office doesn't deem a ballot "returned" until it has first been scanned and had its signature checked.
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Michalowski said there have been more than 475,000 ballots mailed out to voters with about 100,000 of them already received by the county. About 50,000 of them have been officially scanned and processed so far.
The head of Cook County elections offers this advice: "With mail balloting, we have to just be comfortable that there will be a silence in between the point we drop it in the mail or drop box or gets reported and the system’s working. We have a great relationship with our local post office."
Michalowski adds that, "We want to make people to feel comfortable and confident that, we’re making this work for them. This is a very important election."
For those putting mail-in ballots in official drop-boxes, Michalowski said an armored car service will be collecting them each day and taking them to the county clerk’s Operations Center in Cicero. There, they’ll be processed and made ready to tally on Election Day after polls close.