Is it too late to mail in your mail-in ballot? Here’s what to do as Election Day nears

Howard Cohen
·3 min read

It is now less than a week to Election Day, and you still haven’t mailed back your requested vote-by-mail ballot.

As of Tuesday, one week before the Nov. 3 Election Day deadline, more than 1.9 million vote-by-mail ballots you asked for have still not been returned to election headquarters, according to the Florida Division of Elections.

We’ll spare you the lecture about the pitfalls of procrastination.

But is it too late to mail your ballot back now to ensure it arrives at Florida’s election headquarters by the 7 p.m. Nov. 3 deadline for your vote to be counted?

Legally, no. But technically, quite possibly.

The U.S. Postal Service recommended that all mail-in ballots be sent back no later than Tuesday, Oct. 27, to best ensure delivery on time.

Tuesday’s gone, as the old Lynyrd Skynyrd song goes.

A survey conducted by NBC-owned television stations, including Telemundo, found that on-time delivery for the mail has dropped due to cost-cutting measures undertaken this summer. Out of 809 letters sent by the stations to test the delivery system in October, about 1.5% had not arrived after more than a week.

So if you are waiting until Wednesday or Thursday or Friday or even Monday to place your ballot in your post office box, you run the risk that your vote won’t get there in time to be counted.

And before you say, “What about the postmark?” ... We would like to remind you that mail-in ballots must be received — as in, we have your choices in our hot hands right this second and are running the ballot through the machine — by 7 p.m. Election Day, Nov. 3. The postmark does not count in this case.

(One exception: A 10-day extension exists for overseas voters only, provided the ballot is postmarked or dated by Election Day — and this is not what we are talking about here).

So what should you do if you waited?

▪ Drop your ballot into a drop-off box at any early voting location through Saturday in the Keys and through Sunday in Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties.

But be careful. Many early voting locations are at libraries and in some cases the election drop-off box is located near the library’s book drop-off box. Make sure you drop your ballot into the election drop-off box. A poll worker should be around to help out and point you in the right direction but in case they are busy don’t, in haste, drop it into the wrong box.

This is an early voting location’s drop-off box tent at the Kendall Branch Library on Oct. 22, 2020. But note that the box in the far right is the library’s book drop-off box. Do not drop your election ballot into the book return box by mistake.
This is an early voting location’s drop-off box tent at the Kendall Branch Library on Oct. 22, 2020. But note that the box in the far right is the library’s book drop-off box. Do not drop your election ballot into the book return box by mistake.

▪ Vote in person at an early voting location through Saturday in Monroe and Sunday in the rest of South Florida. If you haven’t mailed back your ballot you can do this no problem. You can also bring your vote-by-mail ballot with you and a poll worker can mark it canceled.

▪ Vote on Election Day in person. And if you’re doing that, know that you must vote at your assigned precinct on Nov. 3. You can’t show up at just any site in your county as you can in the early-voting two-week window. If you still have your vote-by-mail ballot in hand bring it with you to the polling station so it can be marked as canceled and you will be allowed to vote in person. (Don’t forget to bring your ID.)

You can’t drop your vote-by-mail ballot into a box at your assigned precinct on Election Day. Vote-by-mail ballots can only be dropped into secure drop boxes at Supervisors of Elections’ main and branch offices until 7 p.m. on Election Day.