How to register to vote by mail in Southwest Florida

Lee County is sending out mail-in ballots starting Tuesday. Collier County sent out its ballots last week and has already received 4,000 back.

If you are voting by mail, your ballot needs to be back at the elections office by 7 p.m. on Election Day. Once you complete your ballot, you can either drop it back into your mailbox or take it to a dropbox; there’s one outside the elections office and at all nine early voting locations.

Jennifer Edwards, Collier County’s supervisor of elections, says to send your ballot back as soon as possible so her office can process it – but remember to sign the back of the envelope first.

“The sorter has a camera on it, takes a picture of the signature of the voter on the backside of the envelope,” Edwards said. “We have a software that brings up the voter’s signature record as well as that photo or image that was just taken by the sorting machine, and they look at those two and if they match, they push one button; if they don’t, they push another.”

If your signatures don’t match, the elections office will call you so you can secure your ballot. Your vote will still be counted even if you’re missing a secrecy sleeve or you simply forgot to insert your ballot into one.

There has been a huge increase in requests for mail-in ballots: Collier County has sent out more than 100,000 already, a big jump from the 60,000 requested in 2016.

“We got about 4,000 ballots back already, and that’s a combination of the United States Post Office deliveries this morning as well as… we have a dropbox here,” Edwards said.  “Today I’ve just watched cars coming in, parking, bringing their ballots in, so it’s great to see.”

The last day to register to vote is Monday, Oct. 5. The deadline to request a mail-in ballot is 5 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 24.

Below are links to each Southwest Florida county’s elections office where you can check your polling location, early voting locations or request a mail-in ballot.