(a) The early voting ballot board shall open each carrier envelope containing an accepted ballot without defacing the certificate on the carrier envelope and remove the ballot envelope from the carrier envelope.
(b) Except as provided by Subsection (c), the board shall place the ballot envelope containing an accepted ballot in the ballot box containing the early voting ballots voted by personal appearance.

(c) The ballot envelope must be placed in a separate container if:
(1) the ballots are to be counted at a central counting station; or
(2) the procedure for counting the early voting votes cast by personal appearance is different from that for counting the votes cast by mail.
(d) An accepted ballot that was not returned in the official ballot envelope shall be treated as an accepted ballot that was returned in the ballot envelope.