LARGO, Fla. — Whether you miss the deadline to mail it back or don’t trust that it will make in time to be counted if you do mail it, supervisors of elections say you always have the option to drop off your mail-in ballot, too.
Voters still hanging onto their August primary mail-in ballot can turn it in until polls close at 7 p.m. on Election Day. Click here for more information about dropping off ballots.
Bay-area supervisors of elections say the drop boxes located at their offices are a safe, secure way to submit your completed ballots despite President Donald Trump suggesting otherwise.
Trump, without evidence, cast doubt on the security of drop boxes for mail-in ballots when he tweeted Monday: “Some states use ‘drop boxes’ for the collection of Universal Mail-In Ballots. So who is going to ‘collect’ the Ballots, and what might be done to them prior to tabulation? A Rigged Election? So bad for our Country. Only Absentee Ballots acceptable!”
"We don't just have a box sitting out in the middle of somewhere where people can just stuff whatever they want into,” said Hillsborough County Supervisor of Elections Craig Latimer. "The drop boxes that we have are in our office and they are manned by people all the time.”
While the boxes can only be found at supervisor of elections offices on Election Day, many counties also offer drop boxes at polling sites during early voting.
Pinellas County Supervisor of Elections spokesperson Dustin Chase says state law is very specific about where ballot drop boxes can and cannot be placed and how ballots must be collected and tabulated.
“It’s really important that people understand this is a very secure process,” Chase said.
Once filled, each dropbox is taken to a secure room inside the county’s elections center, says Chase, where it’s unlocked and emptied. Workers ensure the number of ballots taken out matches the number of ballots they counted being collected.
Sealed ballots are sent through a machine that takes a picture of the envelope to make sure the signature matches what’s on file for that voter.
Once the voter’s identity is verified, their sealed ballot is stored in a secured locker room with two-factor authentication, according to Chase, until it can be counted.
Ballots are moved to another secured room after they are tabulated so they’re not accidentally counted more than once, Chase said.
With nearly as many mail-in ballots cast in Pinellas County as total ballots in the 2016 August primary, Chase says it shows people trust the mail-in ballot process.
“Which they should,” he said. “We have very stringent security procedures in place.”
Florida is a closed primary election state, meaning only voters affiliated with a party may vote for their respective parties' candidates. However, there are some races open to all voters in the Aug. 18 primary.
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