What to Do If You Still Haven’t Sent Your Newsletter
The pandemic makes it difficult to plan ahead for anything, including voting. You may have previously thought that you would not be in town on November 3rd, but now your trip has been canceled and you want to vote in person. Or perhaps you were overwhelmed by all the excitement of being asked to mail ballots a few months ago, but have now decided that you had better go to the polls. Or maybe your newsletter has been filling up for weeks, but you keep forgetting to send it in the mail, and now you are worried that it is too late.
Sometimes even the most elaborate voting plans change. If you find yourself in one of the situations described above – or in other situations where you have not yet mailed the requested ballot – you have not missed your chance to vote. Here’s what you need to know about your options.
What if you still haven’t mailed it?
If you haven’t mailed your ballot yet, it might be time to rethink your voting strategy. The US Postal Service has recommended mailing your newsletter no later than October 27 (which was yesterday). While some (but not all) states do accept ballots mailed on or before Election Day, even if they do not physically arrive at the polling office before November 3, this is not a good time to rely on them. Mail.
Jeff Bennett, a White House correspondent for NBC News, tweeted yesterday:
The moral of the story is to avoid mailing newsletters whenever possible. Leave it to yourself instead. Your options depend on the state in which you vote, but may include ballot boxes, your local polling office, early voting site, or your polling station. You can check what’s available in your state here .
What if you have requested that your ballot be mailed but want to vote in person?
While most states do offer accommodations of some sort, election officials including Jason Hancock, Idaho’s Undersecretary of State, are encouraging people to vote using your mail-order ballot. “I encourage people who receive an absentee ballot to vote with that ballot, ” Hancock told ProPublica . “Spoiling ballots and issuing new ones increases the cost and administrative burden of an election and can slow down the voting process for anyone standing behind a voter in line at the polling station.”
If this argument doesn’t bother you and you still want to vote in person, here’s what to do. First, the survey staff must confirm that you have not yet voted, which in some, but not all cases, involves searching the voter database for you.
Even if your polling station turns out to be one of the trendiest ones with databases, it’s best to prepare. This means that you must be prepared to explain your situation to the polling worker and physically bring your ballot paper by mail, which can help speed up the process.
If given full permission, you will be able to vote by either a regular ballot or, in some cases, a preliminary vote. But if that’s not an option and all else fails, you’ll have your mail-order ballot at your polling station, so just fill it out and leave it while you’re there. And before you try any of these, check your state regulations to make sure it’s even possible. ProPublica has put together this handy state guide .