This 1 Deadline Could Decide If Your Ballot Gets Accepted Or Rejected

As of Oct. 22, over 11 million mail-in ballots have been returned, according to University of Florida Election Lab’s early voter tracker. And with less than two weeks until Election Day, you should be mailing off your ballot ASAP if you plan to vote by mail.
That’s because, depending on where you live, your deadline could be sooner than you think. Thirty-two states require absentee and mail-in ballots to be received on or before the close of polls on Election Day. In other words, your completed mail-in ballot needs to have arrived at your local election office by or before Nov. 5, without exceptions, to be counted.
“We do see ballots rejected because they arrive too late,” Ben Hovland, chairman of the U.S. Election Assistance Commission, told HuffPost. “And again, that is both unfortunate, but also that’s the situation where there is no cure.”
In the 2020 general election, ballots arriving past a state’s deadline accounted for 12% of all rejected ballots, according to a report by the Election Assistance Commission.
And unlike other ballot mistakes like forgetting your signature, voters do not get a do-over. If your ballot gets rejected for a signature mismatch, most states will give you an opportunity to fix the mistake after Election Day, but there is no “cure” process for ballots arriving after a state’s legal voting deadline.
If you live in a state with a “postmarked by” deadline, however, you have more leeway than states with a “received by” deadline. Usually, states with “postmarked by” deadlines require your mail-in ballot to be mailed off by Election Day and be received by your voting jurisdiction within a certain number of days after the election.
Hovland said there are “really valid” arguments for both the “received by” or “postmarked” standard that states use.
“The postmark standard is a little bit more cushion, and can often favor voters. You’re able to count a few that might have otherwise been late,” Hovland said. “But also, people procrastinate, and if they know that it has to be there by Election Day, then you get it in the door.”
Hovland gave the example of Colorado, which has a “received by” deadline of Election Day, but also gives voters a lot of early voting options and drop boxes. And this way, Colorado state officials can pre-process ballots and have “a fairly good sense in their election night results of where things stand.”
You need to give your ballot enough time to be processed in the mail ― especially if you are in a state that has a “received by” deadline.
Even if your mail drop box location is physically nearby your local election office, that doesn’t mean your ballot will be processed faster. “If you’re sitting there thinking, ‘I’ll drop it in the mail the day before the election,’ well, if that then goes to a process and plant in a different town, that’s going to take a couple days to go make its journey,” Hovland said.
This September, the presidents of 29 local election official associations sent a joint letter to U.S. Postal Service Postmaster Louis DeJoy that raised concerns about delayed ballots that were arriving “well outside” of the three-to-five-day, First-Class delivery standard USPS promises. This joint letter cited instances where “hundreds” of ballots in multiple states arrived 10 or more days after postmark.
In his response letter, DeJoy said that USPS delivered “99.9% of ballots from voters to election officials within seven days” in the 2020 general election and that the average mail delivery timeline was 2.7 days. But as a “common-sense measure,” DeJoy also recommended in his letter that voters should return completed ballots at least one week before a state’s deadline.
So if you are counting down the hours and are worried your ballot will not arrive in time, see if you can vote in person.
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In a lot of cases, you can still vote in person even if you received a mail-in ballot. But how you will vote may differ, depending on your jurisdiction. You may need to cast a provisional ballot, for example, so officials know you are not voting twice, or may need to bring your mail-in ballot to your polling location to be voided.
In some jurisdictions, you can also hand-deliver your mail-in ballot, but there are deadlines in these cases, too. Arkansas, Connecticut, Louisiana, North Dakota and Vermont require hand-delivered mail-in ballots to be returned back to election offices at least a day before Election Day.
Either way, act fast on a voting plan. And contact your local election official for clarity if you have questions about missing your mail-in deadline.
“Time’s running out. So if you’re going to request [your mail-in ballot], I’d say, do it immediately, or figure out if you have other options,” Hovland said. “Can you vote early in person? Can you vote on Election Day? Certainly don’t delay.”