There’s still a little time to vote by mail

Florida voters who want to avoid the lines — or the rain — from in-person early voting or going to the polls on Election Day can still request vote-by-mail ballots.

But they don’t have much time to act. The deadline is Saturday.

People can call their county elections office or go online to request a mail ballot.

To avoid the chaos that surrounded the 2018 midterm election in Florida, state law was changed, and the deadline to request a mail ballot — Oct. 24 — is earlier than it used to be. After that date, elections supervisors aren’t allowed to send out mail ballots, though someone can pick one up at an elections office.

Many experts have said that even the earlier deadline is risky; it might be too late for a ballot to get from the elections office to the voter and back to the elections office by the deadline.

However, once someone has a mail ballot, it can be returned at any early voting site — 22 locations in Broward, 18 in Palm Beach County, 33 in Miami-Dade County — through Nov. 1, the Sunday before Election Day. People can also return them to Supervisor of Elections Office headquarters and branch locations. Voters should also know:

■ Someone who has requested a mail ballot, and hasn’t received it, can call to get a new one sent out.

■ People expecting, but not receiving, mail ballots may have had their requests expire. Florida sends voteby-mail ballots to any registered voter who requests one. But the requests last only for two general elections — a presidential contest and a midterm election — and then expire. So someone who voted by mail in the 2016 presidential election wouldn’t automatically get a mail ballot for 2020 without making a new request.

■ Elections office websites have tracking tools that allow votes to see if mail ballots have been sent out, if the return has been received, and if it’s being processed or there is a problem.

■ After the mail-ballot request deadline, people can pick up ballots at Supervisors of Elections Office. And a designee with an affidavit can pick up a ballot for a voter. That’s the system President Donald Trump used for the March presidential and August state and local primaries.

Information

Broward: browardsoe.org or 954-357-7050.

Miami-Dade: miamidade. gov/elections or 305-4998683

Palm Beach: pbcelections.org or 561-656-6200.