The first batch of mail-in ballots arrived Tuesday at the state Capitol and were fed into sorting machines on the floor of the state Senate as volunteer “official observers” monitored every step of the process, beginning with riding in vans with the ballots from the U.S. post office next to Daniel K. Inouye International Airport to the Capitol, and ending their duties only after the Nov. 5 general election, when hand counts will be conducted to verify machine tabulations.