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What you need to know to make sure your absentee, mail-in ballot gets counted

Stickers in a basket are picked through by a voter. The one visible says 'I voted early'
Lauren Chapman
/
IPB News
Indiana absentee, mail-in ballots must be received by the county election administrator's office by 6 p.m. on Election Day to be counted.

Indiana absentee, mail-in ballots must be received by county election administrators by 6 p.m. on Election Day. That means, if you still have yours, it’s too late to put it in the mail.

Indiana’s absentee, vote-by-mail ballot deadline doesn’t consider when that ballot was put in the mail or postmarked. The ballot only counts if the county election administrator receives it by 6 p.m. on Election Day.

But you don’t have to mail in that ballot. You or a family member can return the signed, sealed envelope with ballot inside to the county election board office by that Election Day deadline.

READ MORE: These are the most common mistakes election boards see on mail-in ballot applications, at the polls

Join the conversation and sign up for the Indiana Two-Way. Text "Indiana" to 765-275-1120. Your comments and questions in response to our weekly text help us find the answers you need on statewide issues and the election, including our project Civically, Indiana.

If you don’t know where that is, or can’t make it there, there is another option. If you have an absentee, mail-in ballot, you can go to your polling place on Election Day, surrender that ballot, and cast an in-person ballot instead.

Under Indiana law, family members allowed to return a voter’s absentee ballot are a:

  • spouse
  • parent
  • father-in-law
  • mother-in-law
  • child
  • son-in-law
  • daughter-in-law
  • grandparent
  • grandchild
  • brother
  • sister
  • brother-in-law
  • sister-in-law
  • uncle
  • aunt
  • nephew
  • or niece

Brandon is our Statehouse bureau chief. Contact him at bsmith@ipbs.org or follow him on Twitter at @brandonjsmith5.

Brandon Smith has covered the Statehouse for Indiana Public Broadcasting for more than a decade, spanning three governors and a dozen legislative sessions. He's also the host of Indiana Week in Review, a weekly political and policy discussion program seen and heard across the state. He previously worked at KBIA in Columbia, Missouri and WSPY in Plano, Illinois. His first job in radio was in another state capitol - Jefferson City, Missouri - as a reporter for three stations around the Show-Me State.