Easy Way to Register and/or Vote Absentee in Your State

[sasywtch]

I don't know where you live, but here in Northern CA, they have drop-off locations. When you receive your ballot in the mail, they include ways you can turn it in, doesn't have to be mailed in. And they usually start accepting them several weeks before the election. I've never understood why anyone would want to stand in an hours plus line on election day anyway

I usually take mine down to the church where my "would be" voting place is and drop it in the box.

 

[amcnj]

Thanks for reminding everyone. Each year people show up at the polls expecting to be able to register and vote on site. I particularly remember feeling sorry for a young adult, wanting to vote for the first time, being turned away.

My state had pushed the primary back a little over a month and then made primary voting mainly via mail-in ballots, sending an application to all registered voters. Though there were a handful of in person voting sites in each county too. A decision on how to handle the November elections is expected by the middle of August.

One past complication with absentee ballots in my state was they had decided if you voted absentee one year, you would now continue to receive absentee ballots. Many people traditionally used them when they were going to be unable to get to the polls that one year. Then when they showed up to vote in person the next year, it got messy. There were special paper forms they had to fill out to vote on site. It was a hassle for both the voter and the poll workers. I haven’t heard if that was changed, but assume if they go to all mail-in voting this year, that will not apply.

 

[lilaurora]

Thanks for reminding everyone. Each year people show up at the polls expecting to be able to register and vote on site. I particularly remember feeling sorry for a young adult, wanting to vote for the first time, being turned away.

Wisconsin has Election Day voter registration so you can come to your polling location, register, and then immediately vote.

 

[amcnj]

Wisconsin has Election Day voter registration so you can come to your polling location, register, and then immediately vote.

I think our registration has to be done something like 21 days ahead of the election. Is it a simple and quick registration process, like just having some form of ID with your address on it?

 

[Shellsbutt]

I usually take mine down to the church where my "would be" voting place is and drop it in the box.

My closest drop off is the local library, which works for me because I'm usually there once a week when they're open(been closed for over four months and counting now). I love being able to take the evening and sit down with my husband to go over the ballot at our leisure. We usually cancel each other out but who cares It is so important to get out and vote, no matter how you do it!

 

[lilaurora]

I think our registration has to be done something like 21 days ahead of the election. Is it a simple and quick registration process, like just having some form of ID with your address on it?

To register to vote, you present an accepted document that has your name and current address on it (there is a long list of documents that are acceptable) and complete a voter registration form either in paper or on a tablet in electronic format. ID is not required to register, but it is required to submit a ballot (ID doesn’t need your current address). It’s pretty quick and painless.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

Registration to vote has already passed in my state for August election. Mail-in ballot application request deadline has also already passed. Turning in or absentee or mail-in ballot deadline is post-marked by the election day. But this is a good thread to make sure you're up and up for the November election too for looking into those deadlines if the deadlines for August have already passed for people. Also keep in mind if your state has a requirement for declaring a party affiliation and deadlines related to that (either declaring or switching).

My state has a no-excuse mail-in ballot and this year various counties have opted to send all registered voters applications for both the August and November elections; you do have to submit an application for each election. My county was one of them. If you returned the application then they sent you a mail-in ballot. If you didn't return it then you can either not vote, vote in-person advanced or in-person day of. By July 20th more than 100,000 mail-in ballots were mailed to people of my county.

On a state level by July 24th the state had had more 297,000 mail-in ballots sent out (deadline to apply for a mail-in ballot was July 28th). The most at least in recent years was 2018 where 54,000 mail-in ballots were sent. So clearly the combination of proactively sending in mail-in ballot applications combined with concerns over COVID-19 have pushed many in my state to do mail-in. The numbers are smashing records. I'm extremely interested how the November elections will go based on this and that it will be hitting during the fall.

Normally we do in-person advanced voting but opted to turn in the application this year. We've had the actual ballot for a bit and will be returning it today to the election office (we could mail it too but we'll be out anyways).

Ballotpedia is a great source to use to look up your exact area's ballots and easy access to candidate's websites (if they have one). You can get snippets of their voting history or background too.

 

[JimMIA]

It is super easy to vote by mail in Florida. You go to the county election board website and sign up. You sign for two years. I get my ballot at least a month prior to each election. I fill it out and mail it in at my discretion. I love it!

Right -- or you can drop it off at the Elections office, any early polling site, or your regular precinct on election day. It doesn't get much easier.

 

[ThisIsJason]

Michigan changed to getting absentee ballots for any reason last year (or close to it). My wife and I changed to voting that way because it was a pain going to our polling place. It is in a small elementary school which is short on parking even for staff, for voting you would be parking 6 to 8 blocks away. Once we are both done with our ballots, I will drop them off at the election office or at the fire station which has a drop off box for them. I will not mail them back in.

 

[georgina]

PA just changed their law recently to make mail-in voting available to all. They used to be really strict about absentee, it said on the form if you voted absentee and it turned out you were in the district that day, you had to come in, have your absentee ballot voided, and vote in person. It was a bit of a pain finding the correct forms to be filled out for the few people that actually did this! It also used to be true that one person could not drop off absentee ballots for anyone other than themselves. Not sure if they changed that. I know there was a box downtown for people to drop them off, the president's re-election campaign is suing every county in PA over the drop-off boxes. Not sure if that is happening in other states with drop-off?

https://www.pennlive.com/news/2020/...-over-mail-in-drop-off-sites-for-ballots.html

 

[NotUrsula]

Missouri is awful. They grudgingly made it so that anyone can request a mail-in ballot, but you must request it almost a month prior to the election and the ballot has to be notarized in person before you send it in, or it won't be counted. They also refused to pay for making the ballot post-paid (not require a stamp to mail it.)

It's absolutely shameful in the middle of a pandemic.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

They also refused to pay for making the ballot post-paid (not require a stamp to mail it.)

Ours in KS requires a stamp too..I don't think that's a big issue TBH. I understand cost and all for a voert but it's not a large burden IMO in this case for a stamp.

I will say as far as applications go you could do it 3 ways in my county (they mailed every registered voter one but you still had to return it if you wanted to do a mailed ballot)-by mail (needed a stamp), by mobile device or by dropping off at the election office. We elected to do it by the election office.

For our ballots once we received them we can do it 3 ways as well in my county-by mail (needed a stamp), in-person at any of the open polling locations, or election office. We elected to do it by the election office.

So were there other ways you could return the ballot other than by mail with a stamp in your area?

 

[pearlieq]

Missouri is awful. They grudgingly made it so that anyone can request a mail-in ballot, but you must request it almost a month prior to the election and the ballot has to be notarized in person before you send it in, or it won't be counted. They also refused to pay for making the ballot post-paid (not require a stamp to mail it.)

It's absolutely shameful in the middle of a pandemic.

Shameful is exactly the right word!

I have some St. Louis area friends who are sharing names of notaries who are volunteering their services for free for ballots. It might be worth asking around your local fb or Nextdoor pages to see if anything's being organized. Even if you don't need it, someone you know might.

 

[NotUrsula]

Ours in KS requires a stamp too..I don't think that's a big issue TBH. I understand cost and all for a voert but it's not a large burden IMO in this case for a stamp.

I will say as far as applications go you could do it 3 ways in my county (they mailed every registered voter one but you still had to return it if you wanted to do a mailed ballot)-by mail (needed a stamp), by mobile device or by dropping off at the election office. We elected to do it by the election office.

For our ballots once we received them we can do it 3 ways as well in my county-by mail (needed a stamp), in-person at any of the open polling locations, or election office. We elected to do it by the election office.

So were there other ways you could return the ballot other than by mail with a stamp in your area?

It isn't the cost of the stamp that's the issue; it's the difficulty in buying them if you are homebound and do not have a credit card. You can't order them from the postal service without a credit card, and most grocery stores have stopped selling them now (or if they do still sell them, require buying them in person.) Many people have difficulty getting to the Post Office during business hours if they have to depend on getting a ride from someone who works during those hours.
Sure, it's not impossible, but it's really unnecessarily difficult when the whole point is to allow people to vote without having to leave the safety of their homes.

Yes, you can go in person to the Board of Elections office to drop it off, but it's in a downtown area that requires you to pay to park, and the hours are very short. Again, not impossible, but difficult enough that it's obvious that someone is deliberately throwing up obstacles to discourage potential voters from making the effort.

All St. Louis area public library systems are hosting volunteer notaries, but their hours are limited due to the pandemic, so again, not very convenient.

 

[tvguy]

CA is sending mail in ballots to all registered voters. The county I live in sent a post card out in the past week to confirm addresses that you had send back if you've moved or if the person listed no longer lives at that address.

CA never needed an excuse before to get an absentee ballot. I've been a permanent absentee ballot voter since I registered to vote since I went to college out of state.

I'm in Sacramento County, they automatically send you a mail in ballot instead of a sample ballot that you can chose to mail in, drop off at a drop box, or vote in person and not use. We prefer to vote in person and THAT is getting harder and harder to do. But by 10 pm election night, I know my vote has been counted. They don't even start processing mail in ballots until several days after the election.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

It isn't the cost of the stamp that's the issue; it's the difficulty in buying them if you are homebound and do not have a credit card. You can't order them from the postal service without a credit card, and most grocery stores have stopped selling them now (or if they do still sell them, require buying them in person.) Many people have difficulty getting to the Post Office during business hours if they have to depend on getting a ride from someone who works during those hours.
Sure, it's not impossible, but it's really unnecessarily difficult when the whole point is to allow people to vote without having to leave the safety of their homes.

Yes, you can go in person to the Board of Elections office to drop it off, but it's in a downtown area that requires you to pay to park, and the hours are very short. Again, not impossible, but difficult enough that it's obvious that someone is deliberately throwing up obstacles to discourage potential voters from making the effort.

All St. Louis area public library systems are hosting volunteer notaries, but their hours are limited due to the pandemic, so again, not very convenient.

If you're having access issues to stamps that's one thing. Your previous comment was just about making it where a stamp was required. That I don't personally see an issue with but to me it would become more of an issue if you cannot more easily get a booklet (or just a stamp if needed) as in the places to get it are few and far between. I don't see requiring a stamp as a roadblock or at least none of the people here have mentioned that ever being an issue...then again people in my area were all up in arms that something that has been in play since the mid-90s (mail-in ballots) is somehow just now an issue with people thinking the County was forcing everyone to go to mail-in ballots..I guess people can't be bothered to read what the County was doing and instead made their own assumptions.

The notary thing is dumb and I would call that more of a roadblock IMO so no arguments there from me.

 

[JimMIA]

It isn't the cost of the stamp that's the issue; it's the difficulty in buying them if you are homebound and do not have a credit card. You can't order them from the postal service without a credit card, and most grocery stores have stopped selling them now (or if they do still sell them, require buying them in person.) Many people have difficulty getting to the Post Office during business hours if they have to depend on getting a ride from someone who works during those hours.
Sure, it's not impossible, but it's really unnecessarily difficult when the whole point is to allow people to vote without having to leave the safety of their homes.

Yes, you can go in person to the Board of Elections office to drop it off, but it's in a downtown area that requires you to pay to park, and the hours are very short. Again, not impossible, but difficult enough that it's obvious that someone is deliberately throwing up obstacles to discourage potential voters from making the effort.

All St. Louis area public library systems are hosting volunteer notaries, but their hours are limited due to the pandemic, so again, not very convenient.

People can think of a million excuses not to vote...or to complain. Here in Miami, our mail ballots come with a prepaid envelope. If they want to drop off, we have dozens of locations, so those excuses won't fly here.

The problem that often occurs with mail-in (and absentee) ballots is "ballot-harvesting." Groups of people take stacks of ballots door-to-door and get people to sign them. Then they fill them in according to the highest bidder and send them -- democracy at its finest.

That's the reason why some communities have requirements like notary authentication, although that seems pretty extreme to me. Our elections people use simple signature recognition software to authenticate.

 

[jo-jo]

Sounds like we might be the only ones to vote in person.

In our case, I don't see a need for mail in. We are going to church, to a grocery store, even went to Homedepot. I don't see the difference in going to vote.

 

[JimMIA]

Sounds like we might be the only ones to vote in person.

In our case, I don't see a need for mail in. We are going to church, to a grocery store, even went to Homedepot. I don't see the difference in going to vote.

It depends totally on your local situation.

Here, when we vote in person we often have a wait in line. Waiting in line, with who knows who, with who knows what level of effective social distancing, is not something we want to do at this time.

I much prefer voting in person, in my regular precinct, on election day. It just feels more real to me. But this isn't the year for that...for us.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

Sounds like we might be the only ones to vote in person.

In our case, I don't see a need for mail in. We are going to church, to a grocery store, even went to Homedepot. I don't see the difference in going to vote.

Normally we're in and out within 5-10 mins when we advance vote in-person. Regardless IMO the more ways you can have someone vote the better.

We didn't see a need per se for mail-in because we already can do that but this year we just decided lets do it then we don't have to be concerned because frankly we have enough other worries. We also we made our decision before our area went to a mask mandate as mail-in ballot applications were sent to us in May mask mandate went into effect just before 4th of July. I'm grateful that my county sent us all applications just made it a bit easier and overwhelmingly people are choosing to do mail-in this year at least so far for the August election. I think if anyone wants to do in-person I'm totally for that. It probably will be even less people this year in-person in my area given that so many opted to do mail-in; I'm actually interested in the numbers when they end up being tallied.