Election PSA - Live Outside of the Bay, LA, OC, or SD? Make a Plan to Vote in Person if that Ballot Isn't Already in the Mail - Streetsblog California

"If you haven't mailed your ballot yet, it might already be too late to trust the post office. Thanks to an under-reported change in how mail is processed, some Californians-especially those living far from one of the state's six main postal processing centers-could find their ballots arriving too late to count. And if the president is planning to contest, belittle, or challenge in some-other-way the results tomorrow, this change could be more consequential than his plans for federal poll watchers."

"California's voting rules are designed to make it easy to vote by mail: as long as your ballot is postmarked by Election Day and arrives to the voting center within seven days, it's valid. But here's the catch-getting that postmark the same day you put your ballot in the mail isn't guaranteed anymore. The U.S. Postal Service's recent restructuring means mail collected in Northern California, or smaller or rural communities may not be postmarked locally."

California requires mail ballots to be postmarked by Election Day and to arrive at elections offices within seven days to be counted. Postal Service restructuring now routes collected mail from many Northern, rural, or smaller communities to regional processing centers before postmarking, instead of postmarking locally on collection day. That change can delay postmarks and delivery, putting ballots from areas far from the state's six main processing centers at risk of arriving too late. Official ballot drop boxes deliver ballots directly to county elections officials without postal handling. Voters with unmailed ballots should use drop boxes or vote in person to ensure their ballots count.

Read at Streetsblog