The journey your ballot takes from the drop box to the tabulation machine

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (KKTV) - Almost all Colorado voters, about 98%, according to data from the Secretary of State's Office, use ballot drop boxes to cast their votes instead of mail-in or in-person voting.

On election day, eight teams of two election judges each will be out gathering thousands of ballots to bring them back to the El Paco County Clerk and Recorder's Office for tabulation. The teams are bipartisan, made up of one registered voter from each major party to ensure fairness in every step of the process.

"We work as one, and we want what the voters want. We want to get a great election taken care of and get every voter's vote to count," said election judge Will Malpass.

His counterpart is Susan Quesada.

"We both volunteered to do this because we had questions about how the process worked, and I think we both feel very reassured ... It's a really very good system," Quesada said.

The teams do not simply drive to their assigned ballot boxes by taking the most convenient route. Officials with the Clerk and Recorder's Office say routes are assigned, and change routinely, for security reasons.

Election workers are instructed to park in a location that will be visible to them while emptying a ballot box. They are instructed to keep the car locked at all times. The workers take turns doing steps in the process including unlocking the box, emptying the box, and re-locking the box. While one judge is doing each of those steps, the other is instructed to watch closely to make sure no steps in the process are not completed properly. The bins full of ballots are closed off with two zip-tie-like seals and carried back to the team's car. Logs are filled out and signed by each election worker to document every step.

"... In case there are people that are more than skeptical, we don't want to give them enough information to have any sort of an advantage," Malpass said.

"The first rule is we're not allowed to discuss politics when we're doing our job, so we don't. But we actually have found that we have so much in common, and I think people do," Quesada said.

If you're using a ballot drop box, you have until 7 p.m. to drop it in one of those boxes on election night.for a list of ballot box locations.