Election Day on November 5 will not be the end of the election process. In this age of lawsuits and election challenges, voters need to know what comes next.

There will be a thorough legal process after the unofficial results are released by the provinces organizing the elections. The next steps are written into Texas law, in the name of election integrity. It is known as the canvas. This is when election workers can conduct audits, follow the paper trail, manually count votes and verify the numbers.

Former Texas Secretary of State John Scott told Lone Star Politics that this is the time when the official votes will be verified.

“Our elections are secure and they are safe. Part of that process is the ability of all participants in the election to observe what took place. If there is a demand, they can, for example, organize a competition. They can dispute that a voter should not have cast a vote. There are all kinds of problems that can arise,” Scott said.

State law requires counties to collect and certify their results by Nov. 19, two weeks after Election Day. Often, county election officials complete the process much sooner.

Then the state of Texas goes through a similar process. The state’s deadline to certify the election is December 8.

For the presidential election, the process is slightly different. The two parties have already chosen their presidential electors. Under state law, the candidate who wins the presidential popular vote in Texas will have voters in the state capital on December 17.

That is when the actual voting in the Electoral College takes place. Voters then send those votes to Washington DC, where the National Archives must receive them by December 25.

On January 6, a joint session of Congress opens and the electoral college votes are counted. The candidate who receives 270 or more votes is officially the next president.