It’s hard to fathom anyone being undecided at this point.
I voted 2 weeks ago in North Carolina. I filled out the ballot request form and emailed it. 3 days later I received my absentee ballot in the mail. I was told it was my option whether to use the absentee ballot, or tear it up and vote in person at the polls. I filled out the ballot (big advantage to having the ballot in front of you with time to research unknown candidates - it is a long ballot with many district court judge races), and I needed 2 witnesses which conveniently were my wife and son. Otherwise I could have had one notary public witness the ballot. I mailed it back in and was able to track it online.
The ballot has arrived in my inbox. The bureaucracy worked properly after all.
I just received a community email to inform me voter registration has been extended by one week. So some people have till next Friday.
How much do we have to pay to have electronic vote? I had to pay for Turbotax.
There are a lot of reasons NOT to have electronic voting. (today’s hacking of the internet is a good example of why).
You paid for turbotax because it is a for profit company. It’s not a governmental organization.
^ Just a joke.
I accidentally threw away my husband’s absentee ballot, so he had to ask what he should do. He was told to go ahead and vote at a polling place. Ballots aren’t counted until they are received so it doesn’t matter for him whether he does it by mail or on location. They did ask if he was able to get to a voting location because if not they would resend a ballot.
In Massachusetts, the law states that poll workers count absentee ballots on Election Day and that the absentee ballots are included in the final tally; the absentee ballots are counted whether or not an election has a close race. I was a poll worker in my small town for a long time–back when ballots were counted by hand.
In California, absentee ballots must be mailed by Election Day. They can’t possibly be counted by the end of the day, because many are still in the mail. I hope we don’t have as many provisional ballots as we did in the primary, because it took a month to get all the ballots counted.
I doubt there will be any doubt in the result of California’s Presidential or Senatorial races, but I expect we won’t know the results of the sone of the propositions for at least a week.
In NY, absentee ballots have to be postmarked by election day. They are not counted at the polling places (I work as an election official) but are sent to the centralized board of elections. There is no early voting and no email or online voting.
It is only in the past couple of years that NY has gone from the old fashioned lever machines to high tech electronic voting. I personally hate it because so many elderly people lose their votes because they can’t keep their coloring within the tiny circle. A young man in my community is campaigning for the lever machines to be brought back because they are easier for the elderly and some disabled people; this young man has CP and he can do the lever but his parents have to either mark his electronic ballot for him or he has to use the special machine that marks the ballot for you and which is so difficult to use.
In the local elections that I work at, the absentee ballots are kept in the municipal office and are given to the chair of the election (the past couple of years that has been me). They are only counted if the race is too close without it. One year, the election was so hotly contested that the absentee ballots were taken to court and I had to go and testify about my interpretation of the signatures.
I am always sent an absentee ballot but I never use it. I work at one polling location, often with my D, my H works with one or two of our sons at our assigned location. D and I take our lunch break and go over to where H is, vote and have lunch together.
I anticipate very long lines at our polling place this year.
Voting has officially began in WA. Let’s see when my ballot will arrive.
In Wisconsin, absentee ballots must be received at the clerk’s office by 4 p.m. on Election Day. It used to be 4 p.m. on the Friday after the election.
Did not have to wait long! Got our 2 ballots out of the mailbox… symbolically attached with a rubber band to our garbage bill. 
Baby kiddo already voted her overseas ballot, so all is good.
Voting party on Sunday!!!
Turned in my absentee ballot on Thursday. Made it a little more difficult to fill it out since I was holding my nose at the same time. :-??
@techmom99, I’m in NY and I miss the lever machines, too. I’m surprised you think lines will be very long. I’m in a suburb if Cap District and I’ve never waited in a line more then a few minutes, if that. Our ballots are very short with none of the dozens of propositions so many states have. It takes about a minute to fill in ballot here.
As for absentee ballots in NY we have strict rules on who can vote absentee:
"To vote absentee in New York, you must meet one of the following qualifications:
Be absent from your county or the city of New York on Election Day, Nov 8
Be unable to vote in person because you have a temporary or permanent illness or disability or because you’re the primary caregiver of one or more individuals who are ill or physically disabled
Be a patient or inmate in a Veterans Administration Hospital
Be detained in jail, awaiting trial or Grand Jury action, or in prison conviction for an offense that isn’t a felony"
I think we also have many more polling places in NY then it seems like they have in a lot of other states. I’ve also never heard of polling places being shut down to make it more difficult (and cause long lines) for people to go vote as I seen reported for many years now in other states, Iirc, that was a situation in Arizona during their primary this year.
Here in Maryland, there are no rules about who can get an absentee ballot. You want one, you ask for one, you get one. And as I now know, you can do the whole thing online (although you can’t vote online – you have to submit the ballot by mail or by dropping it off in person at some county office).
I remember many years ago when I was a child in Connecticut, my grandmother requested an absentee ballot once when she was recovering from knee surgery. She had to specify that her reason for needing one – in her case, illness. I didn’t know that there were states that still had rules like that. The rules seem unenforceable anyway.
Election Officials are not allowed to leave the polling place in my state (or at least in my locale). So what happens if there are long lines like you anticipate this year? You cut the line to vote when you show up at your own polling place?
I agree with @Marian that absentee voting rules seem unenforceable.
Same here (CA), anyone can vote absentee. I wonder if in the states that have requirements, do they actually mske you prove it? As Marian said, doesn’t seem enforceable and seems to me like it would be a waste of time and resources. Besides, what’s the point in limiting it?
I don’t know why those are the rules here but they are. But our ballot are very short and people don’t have to spend hours researching initiatives and propositios (citizen proposed initiatives/props are not allowed in NY) to figure out how they want to vote, and it only takes a minute to fill in your ballot and pop it into the machine.
I’ve never heard people complain that they can’t vote absentee here. It’s a non issue,
Our polls are also open longer in NY then every other state (6am-9pm) making it easier for people to go vote in person.