The votes are in, and the wait has begun. In a little over three weeks, Glen Perkins will know if he must regard his friend and former teammate Joe Mauer in a whole new light.

"It's still hard to wrap my mind around — Joe's a Hall of Famer. He's going to Cooperstown," Perkins said. "It's just weird when you're peers with a guy. You never think of him like that."

It's possible that Perkins will get a year or two's reprieve in this mind-bending exercise, that Mauer's name won't be checked on 75% of the 400 or so ballots — which must be mailed in and postmarked before the start of the new year — cast by members of the Baseball Writers Association of America. But if Mauer isn't among the elected when the results are announced on Jan. 23, he is almost certain to reach that benchmark in 2025 or '26.

Mauer, after all, has received the support of 79 voters among the 96 who have made their ballots public though 4 p.m. Saturday, according to the online Hall of Fame tracker compiled each winter for the past decade by Ryan Thibodaux. That's 82.3% of the ballots, an indication that the six-time All-Star is receiving broad backing by the BBWAA electorate — second-most of any of the 26 candidates on the ballot, behind only third baseman Adrián Beltré, who has received 97.9% of available votes.

With roughly three-fourths of the ballots still unknown, it's obviously possible that Mauer will fall short of the 75% standard. Last year, through 201 public ballots tracked by Thibodaux, Todd Helton received 78.6% at 158 votes; he finished at 72.2%, getting 281 of 389, 11 votes short of induction.

"The early numbers, for pretty much every candidate, they almost never hold. Everybody's final percentage drops," Thibodaux said Friday, because voters who decline to reveal their ballots tend to vote for fewer candidates. "That drop can be kind of slight, 1 or 2 percent, or we've seen them upwards of 10 percent."

History says it's an especially difficult path for catchers. Only two — Johnny Bench and Iván Rodriguez — have ever been elected on the first ballot.

Rodriguez is a reasonable parallel to the Twins star, Thibodaux said.

"Through 80 [disclosed] ballots, Mauer is almost exactly tied with where Pudge was, right around 82 percent. And Pudge just squeaked through" in 2017, Thibodaux said. The former Rangers star received four more votes than necessary to reach 75% in 2017, one of the narrowest margins in history.

"That's probably a good way for Mauer fans to eyeball it going forward," Thibodaux said. "Right now, they're identical, so it could come right down to the end."

Assuming he finishes above 50%, Mauer's candidacy would gain an air of inevitability, since no player has ever failed to be ultimately elected after receiving such a high vote total on his first ballot. In addition, Mauer is one of 22 retired former league MVPs — he won the American League honor in 2009 after hitting .365 with 28 homers, with a 1.031 OPS — to play his entire career with one team; the other 21 have all been enshrined in Cooperstown.

"It's pretty exciting for me. I can't imagine what it's going to be like for Joe," said Perkins, whose entire 12-year major league career was spent in the same uniform as his fellow Minnesotan. "I've known Joe since high school. I've thrown to him more than any other catcher, so it's really cool to be a part of. I can't wait for the moment that it happens. Friendship aside, he really deserves it, too."

That seems to be the consensus, though some doubters have pointed out that injuries limited Mauer to only 10 years behind the plate, and only 921 total games as a catcher. But he won three Gold Gloves during those seasons (and it might have been more had Rodriguez not been active at the same time), five Silver Slugger awards and three AL batting championships.

Among catchers, Mauer's Wins Above Replacement figure of 55.2, according to Baseball Reference, ranks ninth all-time, behind eight Hall of Famers. And his place in Twins history is fundamental: His WAR ranks second behind Rod Carew; his 2,123 hits rank second behind Kirby Puckett; his 1,018 runs scored rank second behind Harmon Killebrew; and his 428 doubles are the most ever by a Twin.

"All those guys have some serious Twins history, but Joe did it behind the plate, which to me is all the more impressive," Perkins said. "The best years of his career, he was catching two-thirds of the games, and catching at the highest level."

Doing it without a superstar's ego, too, Perkins said.

"As great as he was, he was just Joe in the clubhouse. An ordinary Joe," said Perkins, who is seven weeks older than the 40-year-old Mauer. "The kind of guy he was in the clubhouse, that was a credit to him, and it helped our team. He wasn't above or better than anyone else, at any point."

Perkins roomed with Mauer at an all-star tournament while they were both seniors in high school, Perkins at Stillwater and Mauer at Cretin-Derham Hall, and they posed for a photo together at that 2001 event. A dozen years later, long after they each became Twins first-round picks, they reenacted that photo at the MLB All-Star Game in New York.

"That was a full-circle moment. Sharing that with him, us being Minnesota guys, it was really cool. It meant a lot," Perkins said. "Now I'm hoping to go watch Joe get inducted next summer in Cooperstown. It doesn't get much better than that."