If someone votes by mail, then dies before election day, does their vote still count?

More than 32 million Americans have already voted earlier this year, according to the University of Florida Election Lab.

This comes amid intense scrutiny of voter fraud nationwide.

But what happens if an eligible mail-in voter dies before Election Day? Does their vote still count legally?

“Just like anything election-related, it depends on what state you’re in,” said Wendy Underhill, National Conference of State Legislatures.

Wendy Underhill works at National Conference of State Legislatureswhich pursues various state policies at the national level.

She said that what is happening in this situation is not based on political lines. This is also very different from voter fraud where someone deliberately votes on behalf of someone who is already dead.

“It has to be the person who has to be live on Election Day who has logic behind it, and the person who legally voted, who has logic behind it,” Underhill said.

According to data from National Conference of State Legislatures10 states have laws that explicitly say they will count an absentee ballot if that voter dies before Election Day. Connecticut law counts these ballots only if the deceased voter is a member of the armed services.

Another 15 states have laws that prohibit the counting of these ballots altogether, with some exceptions in a few states.

Then, more than two dozen states took no explicit position.

But regardless of state law, Underhill said it can be difficult to withdraw a particular ballot after a voter dies.

“If the envelope has been opened and the ballot has been removed from that envelope, at that point, the ballot is separated from that voter,” Underhill said. “And there’s no way in the world you can pull it off. It’s a secret ballot, right?”

While it doesn’t happen often, Underhill said it has in the past. She said it’s probably more common in smaller jurisdictions.