On the road on Election Day? Plan ahead to vote

September 24, 2019

Keith Goble

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The often unrelenting work schedule for professional drivers is not a reason to skip Election Day and sacrifice your right to vote. You can still make your voice heard back home and help set the course on issues at the national, state and local levels of government.

All states allow advance voting. It’s a perfect setup for professional drivers. Some states allow mail-in ballots, commonly referred to as absentee ballots. Other states allow voting in person at locations leading up to Election Day. This is known as early voting. Some states even conduct certain, if not all, elections by mail. Your local elections office or secretary of state’s office should have details.

Absentee voting

There are 28 states to offer “no-excuse” absentee voting – meaning you do not have to give a reason why you want to cast an absentee ballot. Other states either allow permanent no-excuse absentee voting or allow voters to cast absentee ballots only under a limited set of circumstances.

Absentee ballots – or even permanent absentee ballots – can be requested by contacting a county clerk, county auditor, county registrar or supervisor of elections, or the board of elections – depending on the state. Phone numbers for those offices should be in the government pages of your local phone book, or you can do a search online.

Early voting

Some type of early voting is offered in 39 states. It allows voters to simply decide to vote early.

No-excuse early voting differs from absentee voting. Voters may visit an election official’s office – or in some states other satellite voting locations – and cast ballots in person.

The time periods for early voting vary by state. The average starting time for early voting is about three weeks before Election Day.

Mail voting

Colorado, Oregon and Washington run their elections entirely by mail. The process is used to send a ballot to every registered voter prior to Election Day. In addition, 21 states allow certain elections to be held by mail. Hawaii and Utah will begin holding all-mail ballot elections in 2020.