What you need to know to make sure your absentee, mail-in ballot gets counted
Indiana absentee, mail-in ballots must be received by county election administrators by 6 p.m. on Election Day. That means, if you still have yours, it’s too late to put it in the mail.
Indiana’s absentee, vote-by-mail ballot deadline doesn’t consider when that ballot was put in the mail or postmarked. The ballot only counts if the county election administrator receives it by 6 p.m. on Election Day.
But you don’t have to mail in that ballot. You or a family member can return the signed, sealed envelope with ballot inside to the county election board office by that Election Day deadline.
Join the conversation and sign up for the Indiana Two-Way. Text “Indiana” to 765-275-1120. Your comments and questions in response to our weekly text help us find the answers you need on statewide issues and the election, including our project Civically, Indiana.
If you don’t know where that is, or can’t make it there, there is another option. If you have an absentee, mail-in ballot, you can go to your polling place on Election Day, surrender that ballot, and cast an in-person ballot instead.
Under Indiana law, family members allowed to return a voter’s absentee ballot are a:
- spouse
- parent
- father-in-law
- mother-in-law
- child
- son-in-law
- daughter-in-law
- grandparent
- grandchild
- brother
- sister
- brother-in-law
- sister-in-law
- uncle
- aunt
- nephew
- or niece
Brandon is our Statehouse bureau chief. Contact him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter at @brandonjsmith5.
