In this post:
- When to expect to receive your ballot --
- What to do if you don’t receive it --
- Who to vote for --
- How to return your ballot --
- How to track your ballot and make certain that it is counted --
- When and how to use the federal backup ballot (FWAB) --
- What to do if you have problems
When to expect your ballot
Watch your email starting today for your 2024 General Election ballot. Ballots must be sent by 21-September, buy some election offices will start sending them earlier.
What to do if you don’t receive your ballot
Hopefully all voters have requested to receive their ballots via email. If you do not see your ballot by 22-September, please check your junk, spam, and promotions folders. You can also try searching your email system for “official ballot” or just “ballot”.
If you still don’t find your ballot, you should call your location elections office right away. Contact information for all 67 Florida county election offices can be found at https://VoteFromAbroad.org/states/fl. Near the bottom of the page, look for the “Find your Election Office” section, and choose your voting county from the drop-down menu.
And yes, we said call your election office. While this may be inconvenient because of time differences and incur some expense, we’ve heard many reports from around the country of election offices being slow to respond to emails, if they respond at all. A phone call is often the fastest way to resolve problems.
Who to vote for
Are you wondering who to vote for? (Well, besides Kamala Harris and Tim Walz!) Check your county Democratic Party for their slate card. You can find a list of the local Florida Democratic Party sites at https://www.floridadems.org/our-party/local-parties/. We are working on a master list of those slate cards, so check the news page for updates.
It's VERY important to vote all the way down the ballot, and the slate cards make this much easier, especially for any non-partisan races. Those down-ballot candidates need your vote! Today’s down-ballot candidates are the next generation of US Representatives and US Senators.
You can find our recommendations for the state-wide Florida Constitutional Amendments at https://www.democratsabroad.org/542557/2024_florida_constitutional_amendments.
Please vote and return your ballot as soon as possible! If there are any problems, you want to allow as much time as possible to get those problems resolved so your vote is counted.
Returning your ballot
DON’T FORGET TO SIGN AND RETURN YOUR VOTER OATH! Missing signatures are the #1 cause for rejecting a ballot.
In Florida, you only have two options for returning your ballot – postal mail / courier, or fax. While faxing may sound old-fashioned, it’s by far the easiest and most reliable way to return your ballot. If you don’t have access to a fax machine, there are a number of free and low cost online-to-fax services. You can read about how to do this and some of the options at https://www.votefromabroad.org/faqs/RT5.
If you must return your ballot by postal mail or courier, it’s even more important to do that as soon as possible. Do NOT require a signature on your package, as some election offices refuse to sign for any package. If you will be returning your ballot by diplomatic mail, understand that diplomatic mail can be very slow, and embassies and consulates may only accept mail on certain days and times. Check with your embassy or consulate about when they accept diplomatic mail, and ask what the expected delivery time is.
In Florida, multiple ballots may be included in the same envelope/package, as long as all of the voters are voting in the same county. You CAN NOT, for example, put ballots for Miami-Dade County and Palm Beach County in the same package, and expect the election office to forward the ballots to the correct office. The non-local ballots will be discarded.
If you are going to send multiple ballots in a single envelope / package, each voter’s ballot, in its own envelope, and that voter’s oath should go in an envelope, and then those envelopes collected and placed in the package.
If this sounds like a lot of work, it is. Packages can be lost or delayed in the mail. We’ve even heard of rare circumstances where a mailed ballot was held up in US Customs (every envelope/package entering the US goes through customs). This is why we say faxing is the fastest and most reliable way to return your ballot.
Tracking your ballot
Did you know that you can track the status of your ballot on your county’s election office web site? You can see that your ballot has been:
- “Requested” – this means that you requested a ballot for 2024. If you don’t see this after 21-Sept, you should submit a request immediately at https://VoteFromAbroad.org
- “Sent” – your ballot has been sent to you
- “Received” – the elections office has received your voted ballot
- “Counted”- YES! In Florida, absentee ballots are counted as they are received. No count information is released before the polls close on 5-November at 7pm US EDT, but this is one reason why Florida reports results so quickly.
Using the backup ballot
The Federal Write-in Absentee Ballot (FWAB) is your backstop in case something has gone horribly wrong, and you haven’t received your ballot, or you submitted your ballot and it hasn’t been received by your election office. You can submit the FWAB even if you’ve already submitted your official ballot. If both are received by your election office, only your official ballot will be counted. Submitting both an official ballot and a FWAB is NOT considered double-voting. You can find more information how using the backup ballot at https://www.votefromabroad.org/faqs/BB1
I have a problem!
If you have any problems or questions, you can email the Democrats Abroad Voter Helpdesk at [email protected], or your DA Florida State Team at [email protected].
Scott Hoffman
DA Florida State Team Co-Chair 2024