What happens to your ballot after you cast your vote in Florida?

Starting this week, Floridians who are registered to vote can head to a precinct of their choice and cast their ballot in the 2024 Election.

What happens to your vote after you turn in the ballot?

Well, it depends on how you vote.

There are two ways to vote: by going in person to one of your approved voting centers or by mailing in your vote.

Regardless of which option you choose, Florida’s Supervisor of Elections Office wants you to know that all voting in the state is done by paper ballots, unless you have a disability.

That means once you complete your ballot and turn it in to a polling place or mail it, the ballot will run through a device known as a tabulator. It scans or reads the choices you made and tallies your results.

What happens if I choose to vote early?

Well, it’s a pretty similar process to voting on Election Day.

Before each election, Florida counties must perform what’s called a Logic and Accuracy Test.

The test is open to the public. This process ensures that the ballots are printed and counted correctly.

This test is conducted at least 25 days before early voting begins. That way, the early voting ballots can be processed and counted as soon as they are received. However, the results are kept secret until Election Day.

What happens to my ballot results? Where do they go?

According to Campaign Legal Center, once your vote is cast, canvassing begins.

It’s the process in which election officials count all of the tallies from the different polling centers of an area and create one single vote for the area. This happens at both the local and state level.

As local officials are trying to get those totals, they are also releasing unofficial results. Those unofficial results are the numbers that local news stations, including NBC6, across the country tell you on Election Night.

Those numbers change as more ballots get counted throughout the night and sometimes even into the next day.

You might understand what happens to your results, but what happens to your ballot?

After those results are read, the election officials in your area must keep all ballots for at least 22 months after the election. That way in the case of a recount, all of the voted ballots can be rescanned and recounted.

How is it ensured that my ballot is scanned accurately?

There is a system of checks and balances to ensure that the voting systems in place are secure.

According to Florida’s Supervisor of Elections, there is a process called "trusted build."

It means that the voting systems used in Florida must first be tested and approved by the Florida Secretary of State’s Office, before a County’s Supervisor of Elections Office can purchase and use the system.

Before it’s used, the system’s software and firmware must be certified by the US Election Assistance Commission.

After that, the state will test the system's security, safeguards, data encryption and make sure it accurately counts votes.

Also, all members of this testing and certification team must pass a level 2 criminal background check.

Right now, Florida, uses these two certified voting systems. And if new ones ever get approved, all of the information is public and available online, so that voters know exactly what’s being used.