BUFFALO, N.Y. (WBEN) A big voting deadline is looming one week before the election. Tuesday (October 27) is the last day to request an absentee ballot for the 2020 election.
"The easiest and most efficient way to do it, is to request a ballot at elections.erie.gov and apply on our portal for an absentee ballot," said Erie County Democratic Elections Commissioner Jeremy Zellner. He assures voters it will be processed and mailed right away.
"When you receive it and fill it out, you may not want to mail it," he said. "You may want to drop it off at any of our early voting sites across the county through Sunday." Anyone dropping off an absentee ballot does not have to wait in line. They can walk up front, ask for an inspector and drop it in a box.
A second option is to bring it to a polling place on election day and leave it with an inspector.
If mailing it, absentee ballots must be postmarked by election day, November 3rd.
In addition to a surge in early voting, the Erie County Board of Elections has also received a surge in mail-in ballots. "The response has been phenomenal," said Republican Elections Commissioner Ralph Mohr. "We received already over 61-thousand mail-in ballots at the Board of Elections."
Mohr, who has been elections commissioner for over 20 years, said he has never seen a response like this. "It's very exciting to see the enthusiasm of Western New York voters.
Erie County has the most hours and most locations of any county in New York State for early voting. Thirty seven locations are open from 12noon to 9pm weekdays and from 12noon to 6pm Saturday and Sunday. "Voters can utilize any of the 37 sites across the county during the early voting period. If you live in one town, you can vote in another; if you live in the City of Buffalo, you can vote in any one of the towns," said Zellner.
See the list of early voting sites in Erie County HERE. You can see the list of sites for early voting in Niagara County HERE.
As for counting the votes, all early voting results and election day votes will be tabulated when the polls close on election night. Absentee votes won't be counted for 13 days. "We've got to make sure that none of the people who mailed a ballot, also voted in person or participated in early voting," said Zellner. "And we have to make sure that we get all of our overseas ballots from our military heroes."
