Polling stations are open until 7pm on election day, but some polling stations may still have people queuing near closing time.

By law, those voters must be given the opportunity to cast their vote. Some voters in recent years have had to wait several hours to cast their ballots on Election Day, such as during the 2020 primaries when lines extended for hours after hours.

This could delay the reporting of election results.

Once all ballots have been cast at a voting location, polling location supervisors must follow a series of security measures. Before leaving the polling station, they must fill out paperwork detailing the number of ballots counted by the voting scanning machines and the number of voters who have registered to vote. They also have to pack up the ballots and other items and take them all back to the county’s central counting station — the place where ballots are counted, vote totals are determined and unofficial results are generated on election night.

All this is an important part of the process. Polling place supervisors must pay close attention to the details and ensure that everything – ballots, paperwork and equipment – ​​is recorded before being delivered to the central counting station. In Collin County, it can take up to an hour for poll workers to complete this step after they have processed all the voters and the polls have closed.

“What you’re talking about here is election integrity. You need to make sure you have a good chain of custody, which means your records reflect every aspect of what happened at that polling place,” said Bruce Sherbet, Collin County elections administrator.

In large counties, returning ballots and equipment to the county’s central counting station can take time and delay election results. Giant Harris County will receive election results from 700 polling places. One, in Baytown, east of Houston, is 40 minutes away from the county elections headquarters.

To speed up the process, Harris and other major counties will have designated substations throughout the county where election workers can drop off their materials to begin counting votes.

Tarrant County, which will operate 349 polling places on Election Day, will have seven locations where election workers can deliver materials, said Clint Ludwig, the county’s elections administrator. Harris County officials said they will have six locations in the county.

Once everything is turned in, election administrators review and verify the information from each polling place. Counties must post the comparison of the number of voters and the number of ballots cast on their election websites.