CBS13 Investigates: How Long Will It Take For Your Vote To Arrive?
SACRAMENTO (CBS13) — While election day is still a month away, your ballot should arrive this week.
California is one of nine states automatically mailing ballots to registered voters this year. But with all the talk of mail delays, CBS13 wanted to know how long it might take for your ballot to arrive, so we put the local postal service to the test.
We mailed 10 mock ballots from nine different mailboxes from four local cities.
The postal service says voters should mail their ballot at least one week before the due date. So we sent ours out and waited for them to arrive.
Four out of 10 of our mock ballots showed up just two days after we mailed them, while four more were delivered in three days, and the final two arrived in under five days.
The Placer and Sacramento county registrars were, not surprisingly, pleased with our results. Both say they have confidence in the postal service but point to other options for those who may have concerns about voting by mail.
READ: It's In The Mail: Starting Monday, California Sending Ballots To All Voters
Every registered voter should automatically get a mail-in ballot this week and you can drop them off at any drop-box location across the state, including at Raley and Bel Air supermarket locations locally.
"We're going to process that a little bit faster than we would if it is delivered through the mail," Placer County Registrar of Voters Ryan Ronco.
There are 27 drop box locations in Placer County and 70 ballot drop boxes in Sacramento County.
Locations in your county should be listed on your ballots, but for those who are displaced by wildfires or the pandemic, Sacramento County Registrar of Voters Courtney Bailey-Kanelos clarifies that voters can drop off their ballots in any dropbox, even if they're in a different county.
For in-person voting, voter services centers will be open Halloween through election day, Nov. 3. But no matter how you vote, the registrars hope you'll do it early.
"We can start counting those immediately," Bailey-Kanelos said.
Ronco adds that, if there is a problem, they have many more options the earlier a voter sends in their ballot.
If you do choose to mail your ballot, you can track your vote through the "Where's My Ballot?" tool.
