American expats and Absentee Voting

[elektrified]

1 hour ago, Mekong Bob said:

Absentee Ballot completed, dropped off at US ConGen one month ago.  Unable to find website where I can track. Pennsylvania.  crickets

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/10/01/politics/election-2020-mail-in-ballot-tracking-trnd/index.html

[onthedarkside]

On 10/1/2020 at 1:16 PM, elektrified said:

I emailed my ballot to FVAP and have already received confirmation from the DoD that my ballot was successfully transmitted to the Office of the Recorder/Registrar in the State I am registered to vote.

 

If you read the above link, non-military / overseas voters can use the same service as the military use.

 

Edit: it took 2 tries as the first time I was not aware of the required FVAP Fax cover page in which signature is required. Signature is required on both the FVAP cover sheet and the ballot oath. Went through just fine the 2nd time around. Received confirmation in about 48 hours time.

 

I spent some time running this down. Ballot submission rules and procedures vary from state to state.

 

Mine happens to be Texas. And in Texas, they have a state law that specifically limits faxed in election ballots to military folks in combat zones. Civilians out of the country can only mail in their absentee ballots by USPS or private courier. That also was confirmed by the FVAP materials I received for Texas.

[onthedarkside]

Just a tip on mailing in U.S. election ballots for those that need to:

 

The U.S. Embassy has been advising that, for the drop-off method to either the BKK or Chiang Mai Consulates, ballots should have been submitted by Oct. 1 (a week ago now) in order to ensure on-time delivery to the various county election officials in the U.S. (Because once the State Dept gets the ballots to the U.S., they're then put in the regular (troubled) USPS mail for delivery).

 

And Democrats Abroad, at least, sent out material advising folks here NOT to rely on Thai Post EMS or E-Packet delivery methods as a safe, secure way to get your ballot materials delivered on-time.

 

So, I was looking at the various private courier services, which typically can have your ballot delivered in under 1 week, and came across an interesting wrinkle. You can save up to half or so off their regular prices (and specifically I've tested this with UPS and DHL TH) if you order the shipment via their website and have their courier come to your home to pick up the envelope. That's compared to their drop-off or telephone order rates.

 

Here's an example for DHL, based on a 100g envelope being sent from BKK to the U.S.

 

 

With that online ordering rate of 755b, it's actually cheaper than the normal ThaiPost/EMS envelope rate to the U.S., and certainly a whole lot faster.

 

I actually ended up using UPS instead. And for the exact same size envelope being mailed to the U.S., I paid almost exactly the 755b DHL quoted above when doing an online order via the UPS TH website. Because, right now, they're offering a Thailand promotion code that gave that discounted rate instead of their normal 1400-1500b pricing for that envelope. It ended up being $20.50 on my U.S. credit card.

 

Ohh.. And, I made the mistake of checking out mailing via UPS or FedEx at the various Mail Boxes Etc. counter locations around BKK, and discovered that their rates for the different shipping methods are even higher than the rack rates offered by the private shippers. So quickly found MBE, while convenient for drop-off, is not an economical choice.

 

One weird thing I ran into with the online ordering method was where/how to get the various couriers' shipping envelopes and stick-on mail label pouches.

 

UPS doesn't appear to have any of its own retail locations in Thailand, and they weren't willing to provide/send any of their own envelopes. So they advised over the phone that the driver should arrive with a UPS envelope and label pouch to use, and you can print the address label onto regular paper using your home PC and printer. You can also call their call center ahead of pickup to make a specific notation for the driver to make sure to come with a shipping envelope and label pouch.

 

I also checked with a DHL counter operation near my home, and they likewise refused to give me a DHL envelope and stick-on address pouch, unless I was going to pay them and ship directly thru their counter. Which would be about double the price of online order/home pickup method. So I'm assuming I could likewise request the DHL pickup driver to provide one of their shipping envelopes to put my own ballot envelope into.

 

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

On 8/17/2020 at 5:26 PM, ChouDoufu said:

no postmark?

 

https://nypost.com/2020/08/15/fedex-and-ups-say-they-cant-help-deliver-mail-in-ballots/

 

I checked on this directly with my county elections office in a state that requires civilian overseas absentee ballots to be returned by mail. They said it's perfectly fine for overseas voters to send in their voted ballots by either U.S.P.S. OR any of the private couriers like FedEx, DHL, UPS.

 

One difference, though, is the private couriers generally will not deliver to P.O. Box addresses, which are used by the U.S.P.S.   So if you're mailing your ballot via private courier, you want to be sure to get the actual street address mailing address for your elections office to avoid any snafus.

 

This year, my emailed ballot package from my county elections office arrived listing return addresses in both P.O. Box and a separate street address format, but unfortunately didn't provide any explanation of why a voter would want to use one vs. the other. But when I called to ask and confirm, they advised that they had added their street address address for ballot returns specifically for those people intending to return their absentee ballot via private courier.

 

[grin]

My wife just sent a Fedex envelope from Bangkok to me in the US on October 1 - standard delivery - non priority - 1290 Baht. Original estimated delivery date was October 7 but it showed up on October 5.

[Kelsall]

I DHL'd my ballot and it arrived at the County Clerk's office in 2 business days.

Edited October 8, 2020 by Kelsall

[LomSak27]

E mailed p. pics of my ballot in Sept 30. My country voting dept had them up, listed three days later. Meaning I could double check & verify, online. After two decades of mailing absentee ballots in person, at the post office, it was really really nice.

 

 

Edited October 9, 2020 by LomSak27