2022 Midterm Elections: When, How To Get Absentee Ballots In Florida

FLORIDA — Voters in a handful of states can request an absentee ballot now as 2022 midterm election campaigns enter the final stretch. Absentee ballots for the Nov. 8 general election in Florida will be available around Sept. 29 to Oct. 6.

Voters should be aware the procedure to get a mail-in ballot they followed in the 2020 general election may not be the same now. Multiple states changed their election laws after the COVID-19 pandemic upended voting patterns in the presidential election, with 69 percent of Americans casting ballots nontraditionally, according to U.S. Census Bureau data.

Sponsors of new state laws on absentee voting say the changes improve election security, while critics say they make it harder for people to vote.

Request a Vote-by-Mail Ballot

Requests for vote-by-mail ballots must be received in your local Supervisor of Elections office no later than 5 p.m. on the 10th day before an election, which is Oct. 29.

Contact your local Supervisor of Elections to request a vote-by-mail ballot. You may request a vote-by-mail ballot in person, by mail, email, fax or by phone. Only the voter or a designated member of his or her immediate family or legal guardian can request a vote-by-mail ballot for the voter. Immediate family means the designee’s spouse, parent, child, grandparent or sibling of the designee or of the designee’s spouse.

As a voter requesting a vote-by-mail ballot you must provide your:

• name
• address
• date of birth
• signature (written requests only)

If an immediate family member or legal guardian is requesting a vote-by-mail ballot for you, that person must provide above information about the voter as well as the following:

• Requester's name
• Requester's address
• Requester's driver's license number (if available)
• Requester's relationship to voter
• Requester's signature (written requests only)

Voting a Mail Ballot

Your marked ballot must be mailed or delivered in person, reaching the Supervisor of Elections’ office not later than 7 p.m. on the day of the election, Nov. 8. Do not return your voted mail ballot to a polling place.

You may designate someone to pick up your vote-by-mail ballot on Election Day or nin days before Election Day. The designee may only pick up two vote-by-mail ballots per election, other than his or her own ballot or ballots for members of his or her immediate family. Designees must have written authorization from the voter, present a picture I.D. and sign an affidavit.

If you decide to go to the polls to vote instead of voting by mail, you should bring the vote-by-mail ballot (marked or not) with you so that it can be cancelled at the polls. If you come to the polls without the vote-by-mail ballot, you can vote a regular ballot if the Supervisor of Elections' office can confirm that it has not received the vote-by-mail ballot.

If the Supervisor of Elections office has received the vote-by-mail ballot or it cannot be determined, you cannot vote a regular ballot at the polls. If you believe that you have not already voted, you will be allowed to vote a provisional ballot.

A vote-by-mail ballot can be dropped off at designated secure drop boxes located at early voting sites during the election. Contact your local Supervisor of Elections or check their website for the locations of all the vote-by-mail ballot secure drop boxes in your county.

On Election Day, Florida voters will decide whether to elect Republican incumbent Gov. Ron DeSantis to a second term, or instead send Democrat and former governor and recent Congressman Charlie Crist to the governor's office.

Related: Crist Calls DeSantis A Bully, Fried Vows To Campaign For All Democrats

GOP Sen. Marco Rubio, who is seeking his third term, faces a challenge from Democrat Val Demings, 65, who has served as a U.S. representative since 2017. She served in the Orlando Police Department for 27 years. In 2007, she was named the agency’s first female chief of police, according to her website.

Related: Val Demings Will Face Marco Rubio In FL U.S. Senate Race: AP

Florida voters also can decide three statewide ballot initiatives:

Amendment 1 Taxes: Authorizes the state legislature to pass laws prohibiting flood resistance improvements made to a home from being taken into consideration when determining a property's assessed value for property tax purposes.

Amendment 2 Direct democracy: Abolishes the Florida Constitution Revision Commission, a 37-member commission that reviews and proposes changes to the state's constitution. The commission refers constitutional amendments directly to the ballot for a public vote. Florida is the only state with a commission empowered to refer constitutional amendments to the ballot.

Amendment 3 Taxes: Authorizes the Florida State Legislature to provide an additional homestead property tax exemption on $50,000 of assessed value on property owned by certain public service workers including teachers, law enforcement officers, emergency medical personnel, active duty members of the military and Florida National Guard, and child welfare service employees

In the 2020 presidential election, 43 percent of voters cast absentee ballots by mail and 26 percent voted in person before Election Day, according to the Census Bureau. Four years earlier, 21 percent of voters mailed in their ballots and 19 percent voted in person before Election Day.

Among groups seeing increases in absentee or early voting in 2020 were voters over 65, those with a bachelor’s degree, women, and Asian and Hispanic voters, according to the Census Bureau.

In Florida, a significant portion of voters — 61.8 to 82.8 percent or more — used "nontraditional" voting methods in 2020 as the coronavirus pandemic hit. That included those who voted early and/or by absentee ballots.

The increase in those using nontraditional voting methods in Florida represents a change of about 18.8 percentage points or less compared to the 2016 election.

Absentee ballot requests are already being taken in several states. Once the applications are verified, election officials begin mailing them during the times specified in state laws, according to information gathered by the National Conference of State Legislatures.

Those officials will continue to verify and mail out absentee ballot requests for either a designated period or right up to Election Day. The NCSL said few states don’t specify when they start accepting absentee ballots, but in general:

• Ten states — Arkansas, Delaware, Kentucky, Minnesota, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Tennessee, West Virginia and Wisconsin — begin mailing ballots to voters more than 45 days before Election Day.
• Eleven states — Alabama, Idaho, Indiana, Louisiana, Michigan, New Jersey, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, Texas, Virginia and Wyoming — begin mailing ballots to voters 45 days before the election.
• Fourteen states — Connecticut, Florida, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New York, North Dakota, South Carolina and Vermont — begin mailing ballots to voters 30-45 days before the election.
• Fourteen states — Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Georgia, Hawaii, Iowa, Kansas, Montana, New Mexico, Ohio, Oregon, Utah and Washington — begin mailing ballots to voters fewer than 30 days before the election.
• Eight states — California, Colorado, Hawaii, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, Vermont and Washington — automatically mail absentee ballots to all voters.