Mail-in ballots for Smith County voters to arrive soon

Published 5:40 am Friday, October 25, 2024

Voters who haven’t received mail-in ballots can expect it to arrive soon.

“There are people still waiting,” Smith County Elections Administrator Michelle Allcon said Thursday afternoon. “Yesterday’s applications, the ballots went out in the mail today. Today’s application, the ballots will go out tomorrow. The application deadline is (Friday) for ballots, so we’ll be continuing to send out ballots over the next few days.”

Applications for mail-in ballots received by the Elections Office are processed the following day, after the mail arrives in the late afternoon. The procedure involves opening all mail, processing applications and sending out the ballots shortly thereafter.

There are currently 1,370 mail-in ballots that have been deemed acceptable for counting. Once early voting ends, those ballots will be opened and counted. So far, over 3,500 ballots have been mailed out, and the office is still receiving more applications.

The final day for the Election’s Office to receive mail-in ballot applications was Friday.

“We will get ballots and we’ll be processing them, a day later, two days later, depending on how big the stack is from that day,” Allcon said.

The turnaround time from application to ballots being mailed is about one day. Voters should allow up to five business days for their ballot to arrive. The local post office works diligently to ensure timely ballot deliveries, making multiple deliveries per day to the Elections Office.

If a voter doesn’t receive their ballot in time, they can cancel it and vote in person. If they don’t have the mail-in ballot with them at the polling place, they’ll need to vote provisionally, allowing the office to verify they haven’t already voted by mail.

If they bring the ballot with them, they can cancel it and vote in person without issue.

If a voter forgets to sign the envelope on their mail-in ballot, the ballot board might reach out to them by mail to correct the mistake. Once the voter fixes the issue, the ballot can be counted. It will still be marked as received on the original date it arrived, not when the error was corrected.

Voters can use the ballot tracker at VoteTexas.gov, provided the Elections Office has both their Texas ID and the last four digits of their Social Security number on file.

The tracker shows when the application was accepted, when the ballot was mailed, if the ballot was received, and if it was accepted for counting. It also indicates if there’s a defect, allowing voters to correct it online or by returning a mailed notice.

“Once the voter gets the ballot, we can receive the ballot up through Nov. 6 as long as it’s postmarked by Nov. 5,” Allcon said. “If a voter wants to hand deliver their mail ballot they can only do that on Election Day itself [at the HUB].”