Overview
- With fewer than five days before the June 2 primary, election officials and voting advocates are urging voters to mail ballots immediately or use official drop boxes and vote centers to avoid postmark uncertainty.
- The U.S. Postal Service now applies postmarks when mail is processed rather than when it is collected, which can cause ballots dropped in mailboxes on or near Election Day to lack an Election Day postmark and therefore be rejected.
- Election experts and the Postal Service advise getting a manual local postmark at a post office counter or returning ballots to secure county drop boxes to ensure they meet California’s rule that mailed ballots be postmarked by Election Day.
- Counties began processing returned mail ballots on May 5, more than 1.5 million vote-by-mail ballots have already been returned, and offices are following strict chain-of-custody and signature-verification steps to protect ballot integrity.
- If a ballot’s signature is flagged, voters will be notified and have until June 24 to 'cure' the signature, and properly postmarked ballots may be accepted up to seven days after the election if they arrive by June 9.