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Election 2020: How to avoid ballot rejection

Ballot rejections happen a lot with mail in voting, and potential mistakes could start with the envelope your votes go in.

BRAZOS COUNTY, Texas — Election 2020 is just weeks away, and a lot of people are voting by mail this year.

Folks should be careful sending in your ballot, though. 

Ballot rejections happen a lot with mail in voting, and potential mistakes could start with the envelope your votes go in. 

When someone fills out a mail in ballot, they should place it in a yellow envelope with somewhere to put your signature on the back of it.

“When you don’t sign that, then the early voting ballot board does not have a signature to compare to your application,” said Trudy Hancock, the Election Administrator for Brazos County.

No signature means no counted ballot. Another snafu that can happen with mail-in voting: signatures that don’t match. 

When someone fills out their application, they might print everything, including their name. 

Then when they return their ballot, they might sign their regular signature on it. 

“Those don’t look anything alike," Hancock said, "So there's no way for the board to know that the same person filled out the application and filled out the ballot.”

The last common mistake: timing. Mail-in ballots have to be received in the mail the day after the election and postmarked on Election Day. 

This year, Texans can hand-deliver their mail in ballots if they want. 

“We will look at their ID, make sure they’re the same person, their name’s on the ballot envelope, and then we’ll have them sign a roster and they’ll place that in the box," Hancock said.

When you vote in person, you won’t get turned away even if you don’t have your ID with you. 

Voters have six days to come back with an ID and turn that provisional ballot into an actual one to get counted later. 

So far, The Brazos County Election Board has gotten about 5,000 mail-in ballot requests and are getting more each day. 

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