Have you voted early?

Voted last Friday after lunch, it took 30 minutes from getting line to walking out.

Last Saturday morning. No line whatsoever.

Voted by mail and drop box 3 weeks ago.

I voted by mail last week.

Yes. Last week, by mail.

Last week in a drop box.

Handed in my mail-in ballot at an early voting center yesterday. There was a line of about 15 people (11:30am) for early voting, but my husband and I walked right in, no line, to put our mail-in ballots into the box.

Friends where I live are saying they have hit 45 minute lines at some voting centers, usually in the morning, which is typical the first few days of early voting. Afternoon is usually better, and then 5:00pm it can get busy again, people getting out of work.

I assume next week will have shorter lines all times of the day.

Trump has been telling his supporters to vote early and Dems tend to be paranoid they won’t be able to vote so they go the first day they can, so there is a lot of early voting happening.

I’m going to vote within the next week. Will report back.

Lines on Election Day might be too long plus if it happens to be cold and/or rainy, which is a possibility, I’ll wish i did it sooner.

@jca2 My thoughts, too.

@jca2 I still can’t believe NYS didn’t have early voting until recently.

I will be doing early voting next week.

I voted absentee a couple weeks ago.

I’ll vote on election day because girl scouts sell cookies at our polls.

I voted by mail a week ago, since I will be out of the country the first half of November.

^Probably a good thing.

I used to go vote early, as soon as that started being an option. But now I just dropped my ballot in the ballot box. So much easier, especially since with some of my health issues, standing in line for a long time is not the easiest thing.

@JLeslie I was actually surprised that Trump did that this year, where he encouraged his followers to vote early. Does he somehow think that he’s going to end up with more votes by telling them that because that’s what happened last presidential election with the Democrats because so many of them voted early? Also, if he’s told them to vote early, then that totally destroys the argument that he made last time, where he said Democrats were cheating by voting early. It might make the race a little less skewed from early results, although some states, if I remember correctly don’t start telling the mail in ballots until after the election day results.

@LifeQuestioner Most of the extremely red states have early voting, their big attack is on mail-in voting. Although, some Republicans 4 years ago did make a point to say they are Election Day voters. I don’t remember if Trump was saying negative things about early voting, except that like you are saying now he was saying early counting on Election Day was favoring him and then “suddenly” he was losing and so there must be corruption.

It makes sense to encourage early voting. If you get sick or lazy on election day and don’t vote, that’s it, no time to make it up.

^^I definitely think it makes sense! There has to be an election day because we have to say that if you haven’t voted by a certain date, it’s too late. Even mail in ballots have to be postmarked by election day if I’m not mistaken. But who wants to take the risk of it being a really rainy, nasty day on election day and then you know it’s going to be harder to motivate yourself to get out. In certain parts of the country it could already be snowing for that matter. And yes, you’re right. I forgot that the main attack was against mail-in voting.

I voted by mail 2 days after I got my ballot. My ballot was received, and counted on 10/11/2024

No, I don’t dare, I’m in Wisconsin.

In 2020 Republicans came within 1 WI Supreme Court vote of throwing out all the early/mail votes ONLY from Milwaukee and Dane counties, the 2 biggest and least-Republican counties in the state.

Since then I always vote in person. Wisconsin polls will be open
Tuesday, November 5, 2024 7.00 AM – 8.00 PM

@LifeQuestioner My state the mail-in ballot has to be received by Election Day, post mark doesn’t matter.

I’m going to put my ballot in a drop box on Oct 26.

@JLeslie that’s a little scary then because the post office is not as reliable as it used to be. If I lived in your state I would probably hand deliver it.

^^We can track our ballot. If we don’t see it received we can do a previsional ballot on Election Day, but I agree it’s easier to hand it in since I live here.

Dropped off my mail-in ballot today!

Vote Early in Person this morning.

@Brian1946

“I’m going to put my ballot in a drop box on Oct 26.”

Whoops! I accidentally voted for a wrong candidate while I was watching the World Series. :-p

So I had to wait until Monday to call voting assistance.
I followed their advice and put it in a drop box on 10/30.

Checked and my ballot has been accepted.Yay!

My ballot has been processed and counted.

Today I looked up Pennsylvania mail-in counting laws. Looks like they still can’t count until Election Day. Why the hell does anyone think that’s a good idea? There are still a lot of states that have this rule. Just awful for so many reasons.

Here’s a table of which state can count when, just scroll down a little. https://ballotpedia.org/When_states_can_begin_processing_and_counting_absentee/mail-in_ballots,_2022

I’m so busy, I think I will just go on Election Day. If I go before Election Day, the voting location is about a half hour from my house, so an hour round trip. If I go on Election Day, it’s ten minutes from my house, so even if the line is longer, it may take the same amount of time, total.

^^That’s the one good thing about Election Day voting; there are more convenient locations. I’ve never had to wait an extremely long time to vote on Election Day in any state. I think because so many people vote early and because there are so many polling places. I try to go midday.

I early voted. That location is actually closer than my designated voting site. Lines were long, especially for Alaska, but I was impressed with the efficiency and friendliness of the workers. They had it down to a fine art by the time I was able to go. I’d actually requested a mail ballot so had to turn it into them so as not to create a problem. I was impressed with how they handled that and the security even for my unused ballot. There seemed to be a security guard on duty, too, though might have been just a worker taking a break. It really is an amazing process and I came away completely satisfied that my vote, not to mention the unused mil ballot, were secure and accounted for.

Those that say they checked their ballot, how do I do that?

@AlaskaTundrea I put my ballot in a ballot box about a day before you could go and do early voting. But I actually drove a little further because I felt like the place I dropped it off at was more secure than at a school, which who knows how much it’s being surveilled during the night.

@chyna it might differ from state to state, but in my state, there’s a number on your ballot that you can apparently use to check the status of your ballot online. However, I don’t think I will have to use that because about a week after I put my ballot in The ballot box, I got an email that my ballot had been received. Not counted yet, but received.

Thanks at life!

I got this email from CA BallotTrax at 4:32 PM today (10/31): “This is a message from the California Secretary of State on behalf of Los Angeles County Registrar of Voters. Your ballot for the November 5, 2024, General Election was received and counted. Thank you for voting!”

@chyna

If you’ve received any emails from your registrar, they might include a link to apply for ballot tracking.

In Florida if we mail-in vote we can look up our ballot status by going to our county voting website and we enter our name and birthday and it shows 4 stages of our mail-in: Requested, Sent, Received, Counted. Each stage turns from grey to blue when completed.

It’s the same website we use for all voter information including the online form for requesting a mail-in ballot, although you can also request a mail-in ballot in person, in writing, by calling, email, or fax.

@chyna: I just googled “check the status of my mail in ballot Massachusetts” and the first hit was a link to do so. Just asked for some info and voila.