I always vote shortly after we receive our ballot in the mail. It’s mailed to everyone in our state. I deposit it into the ballot drop box which is a 5 minute drive from our house. The hardest part is figuring out all the countless ballot initiatives—this year there were 20 plus 2 constitutional amendments!
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I “vote by mail” only I physically take it to the elections office.
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Northern Virginia.
The voting locations opened in September.
Last week I voted early in person, which I have preferred since I had to miss Election Day once. The signs out front were just stunning — so many. Sewing so much confusion. It took about 10 minutes, but I’m aware others have waited much longer.
In 2011, I found out on Saturday afternoon (too late for the early voting deadline) that I had to be in another state by noon on Election Day — and was therefore unable to vote.
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I voted early in-person, last week in SC. I waited in a 30 minute line that wrapped around the building. H went yesterday and had the same wait. The news is reporting record turnouts for early voting in SC.
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Arizona.
DH and I voted today in person for the first time in 35 years as I forgot to request to have our ballots sent to Maine as ballots are exempt from mail forwarding. We went to our local recorder’s office, only two other people there to vote early. We were in and out in 25 minutes. We were also informed and given a pamphlet on voting online so we can vote directly from Maine in the future.
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Voting online?!! That’s a new one.
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I early voted in person on Monday, second week of early voting in our state. At the public library after my exercise class at the gym next door. The voting location greeter was a delightful cheerful woman. Had to get a regular I Voted sticker because there were no I Voted Early stickers. Only other choice was Future Voter. No line but a few people there and a few coming in as I left. While I was there they found someone’s license left on one of the voting machine tables. The woman said to me “we have a collection of those.” I replied “as someone who left my credit card at a restaurant yesterday, I can’t judge.”
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I’m not in Georgia, but in my state they offer curbside voting, both for early in-person and day-of. For anyone above a certain age, or disabled. Might be worth looking into.
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Question for those whose states have early in person voting. Where do you go to vote? In PA on Election Day our voting is often in schools, firehalls, churches, etc which kind of shut down for the day. What types of buildings are being manned and open for voters for many days? It’s something I am not familiar with.
Your town will designated early voting place(s). Sometimes they are where you usually vote and sometimes they are not. You can call your registrar of voters to find out where you do early voting in your town. Or your party town committee, or the league of women voters.
In our town, early voting takes place in the town clerks office. Regular voting is in two other locations (small town).
Places used…libraries, community centers, senior centers, etc. It depends on the town.
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Our Secretary of State has a website dedicated to voting. You can search for your county/city and see where the early voting sites are including the one day pop ups like the one I voted at yesterday.
The sites vary. Mine was at a neighborhood recreation center.
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Voted early today, a bit of a wait but the volunteers were doing a fantastic job! They’d posted slips of paper in the lobby showing numbers of ballots cast in various town districts over the past several days. Looks like a lot of people have been coming out!
In Ohio, one early voting location per county - no matter how big the county. Ours was at our boards of elections building.
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Here in Dallas County, there are actually 84 early voting locations. Mostly they are regular polling locations that have plenty of room and are not crowded on a typical weekday - most of the public library and community center locations are open for early voting, but generally not schools.
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Check and see if your county has drive up voting for folks who have mobility issues. That’s a thing that they do here where I am.
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@surfcity, I voted early at the library. In my county there are 6 early voting sites (not a huge county, population about 150k). The sites are two libraries, a community center, a senior center, a church and a municipal building.
@everyone! I encourage you all to vote early if your state offers it. You never know when you might get explosive diarrhea from the wrong lettuce and not be able to leave the house on Election Day. If you want to make sure you will be able to vote, vote early because you’ll have more chances. If you wait until the last day something might happen.
I voted on the first day of early voting. My county uses fill in the bubble ballots that you feed into a big tally machine (looks like a big copier) that scans the bubbles on your ballot. I was number 370 for that polling place that afternoon. There was a line, but it moved pretty fast.
What are your ballots like? Do you vote on touchscreens? Fill in the bubble? We used to have one that was a complete the arrow ballot and we got markers to do that. I liked that one better than the bubble one, but I like either of those better than a voting machine/touchscreen situation.
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DH and I voted early in person a few days after early voting opened. There were no lines.
Ever since early voting became available in CT, I prefer it. I can choose a day when the weather is good and I’m feeling well. If I have some errands to run afterward, all the better. There is no downside, for us.
In 2020 we submitted our ballots via the drop box outside town hall, to avoid Covid.
I would only mail in my ballot if I were completely housebound.
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My state has curbside voting also. This can happen on Election Day. No need for your parents to even get out of the car.
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Our early voting places are different from our regular precincts. Cities and townships can run early voting sites, often joining with other cities/townships & often locating the site in a library. In addition, the county has a central polling site where anyone who lives within the county can vote - this is at a county park conference center.
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We early voted today. The polling place was very crowded but the lines moved right along. Maybe 25 minutes start to finish. The whole place had a very upbeat atmosphere. My husband said it was like a party.
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