Thousands of voters waited for several hours while mail-in, absentee and email ballots held up election night results in Montgomery County Nov. 8. Results were not released to the public until near midnight, County Judge Craig Doyal said. As a result, the county elections office has outlined steps to release election results in a more timely manner.

“I met with our Elections Administrator Suzie Harvey and other elections officials Wednesday to better understand the issue and hammer out some steps we can take to avoid this situation in the future,” Doyal said in a statement.

The elections office received 11,000 mail-in ballots, a 50 percent increase from the 2012 general election, Harvey said.

Going forward, county officials said the elections office plans to release early voting totals at 7 p.m. on election night, separate from mail-in and emailed ballots. The county's current practice is to withhold early voting numbers until all mail-in and email ballots are counted. Additionally, staff will be trained to expedite the count of mail-in ballots.

“I am confident we will not experience this specific issue again," Doyal said.

Emailed ballots, which were first allowed in 2010 to voters residing outside the U.S., must be printed, completed and mailed back to the elections office. Once received by elections officials, the ballots must be transferred to official ballot stock before the votes can be scanned in. State law governs the processes for mail-in and emailed ballots, which can be received by the election office until 7 p.m. on Election Day and up to five days after the election if mailed from outside of the U.S.

"We appreciate the work that Suzie and all of our election staff and workers did under the pressure of a very high-turnout election," Doyal said. "They are a great team, and I am confident they will continue to do great work in the future."