WASHINGTON — Our Verify team is here to get the facts on voting in 2020.
DC has one of just a handful of election boards sending mail-in ballots to every registered voter.
That led to dozens of tweets popping up, with people say they’re getting stacks of ballots at their address for people who haven’t lived there in years.
Three members of our own Verify team received similar ballots. With all the additional ballots being sent to wrong addresses, we wondered where they are supposed to go. So let's Verify:
QUESTION: If you receive a ballot for someone who doesn’t live at your address - what should you do with it?
ANSWER: Don't open or throw away the ballots. Mail them back to the Board of Elections.
SOURCE: We took this right to the people in charge - the DC Board of Elections.
The DC Board of Elections told us it’s easy. Just mark the ballots return to sender and mail them back to the Board of Elections. You just need to write “RTS” on the outside and place them in a mail dropbox -- it's that simple.
Remember -- opening or destroying someone else’s mail is a federal offense -- so these ballots shouldn’t go in the trash or be opened up.
If you need a way to track your mail-in ballot, there's a the Verify team also looked to the local election websites in DC, Maryland, and Virginia, to get the local deadlines.
In DC and Maryland, if a ballot is postmarked by Election Day, it will be accepted up until ten days after Election Day.
That means the ballot is required to arrive by November 13, to be counted. In Maryland, the ballot must arrive by 10 a.m. on November 13.
According to the Maryland State Board of Elections, applications for mail-in ballots must be received by October 20.
In Virginia, if a ballot is postmarked on Election Day, it will be accepted up to noon on November 6th, three days after Election Day.
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