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Absentee ballot requests, sent out by the Prince George’s County Board of Elections to all registered voters, began arriving at homes in Greenbelt last week. Voters who do not plan to vote in person will want to return the request as soon as possible through the mail so they receive their mail-in ballot in plenty of time.
Ballot drop boxes were very popular during the June primary election for returning completed ballots directly to the county elections board. The State Board of Elections expects to provide at least 127 boxes to be deployed across the 23 counties and Baltimore City.
Most ballot drop boxes are expected to be located near the open voting center locations where early voting will take place. Voters may drop off a ballot in its signed and sealed return envelope to any of those boxes at any time, day or night, prior to November 3 or before the final 8 p.m. closing on election day. The county board will publicize drop box locations closer to the election or in the instructions with the mail-in ballots themselves. These boxes will have specialized security. Ballots will be picked up daily and then coded as to where and when they were picked up as part of the tracking process.
This way, once the ballot is marked, it can be dropped off at a drop box should the voter want to avoid in-person voting lines. The ballot must be placed in its return envelope and the envelope must be signed on the outside by the voter and properly sealed. The return envelope comes with the ballot and is marked and bar-coded to correspond specifically to each voter’s information so that once a ballot is returned, the county board knows that the voter has voted.
During the primary, the mistake of failing to sign the outside of the ballot return envelope caused some ballots to be rejected and thus not counted. Sign the envelope.
Options to this method of returning the completed ballot are to mail the envelope to the county board using the official return envelope provided. Again, the envelope must be signed by the voter or the ballot will not be counted.
Voters could also bring their completed ballots to a voting center to deliver it in person during the days of early voting through the final day, Tuesday, November 3. Anyone who is concerned about whether one’s ballot might not be accepted may bring it to a voting center to hand it in in person. Matching one’s current signature against an older signature can be a concern.