There’s lower than per week left till the 2024 normal election between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump. Which means early voting continues to be underway in a lot of the states — with at the very least 55 million individuals already casting their poll — and for some, it is vital to know that your early polling place will more than likely be totally different than your Election Day polling place.
Consultants on the American election course of have typically inspired individuals to take full benefit of early voting. It not solely might be handy for busy of us who could be pressed for time on Election Day itself but in addition can provide them additional time to kind issues out in case there are points with their voter registration or their ballots.
With that in thoughts, learn on to see how you could find your early voting location on-line. For extra on the election, examine how poll selfies would possibly land you in authorized scorching water and see if there’s nonetheless time so that you can register to vote.
What’s early voting?
When you consider “early voting,” you may more than likely think about what’s particularly known as “early in-person voting,” through which you go to a selected place and forged your poll in particular person previous to Election Day. These places typically resemble a polling place you’d see on the massive day, with volunteer ballot staff and cubicles for filling out your poll.
In some states, this entails going to an official native authorities workplace, requesting an absentee poll, filling it out and submitting it on the spot. This technique is also known as both “in-person absentee voting” or “no-excuse absentee voting.” Just a few states — Alabama, Mississippi and New Hampshire — do not supply universally accessible early voting, solely permitting individuals to request absentee ballots with an accredited excuse.
The place can I discover my early voting polling place?
It is these “early in-person voting” places specifically that you’re going to need to be certain about, as they are going to are likely to differ from the polling place you’d go to on Election Day. Utilizing on-line instruments that declare that can assist you discover your “polling location” will virtually all the time provide the deal with to go to on Election Day, not throughout early voting, so you may should look elsewhere.
To search out out the place you may vote early, the very best place to look is your native county authorities’s official web site. Merely seek for your county’s identify and the time period “early voting,” and you need to discover a web page itemizing the place residents can go to vote early. One other good wager for locating the data you want could be your county’s Board of Elections web site.
In some circumstances, there will likely be a number of places listed, however don’t be concerned, as any resident ought to be capable to vote at any of those places, so simply decide the one which’s closest to you. As Vote.org notes, you might need to particularly seek for “absentee voting” to seek out the data you want, relying on the place you reside.
For extra details about every state’s early voting durations, please seek the advice of the interactive map under.
For extra about preparing for this election, discover out how one can additionally lookup your pattern poll on-line.