How to return your mail ballot in Pennsylvania

Pennsylvanians who are voting by mail have to get ballots to their county board of elections by 8 p.m. on Election Day.

To return your ballot, you’ll first have to completely fill it out, and place it in the envelopes provided with it. Don’t forget to fill out and include your voter’s declaration, which requires a dated signature.

After filling out your ballot, you will need to get it your local county election office by the deadline in order for it to be counted. You can turn it in directly to the county election office, or mail it in.

Some counties also have drop boxes or satellite election offices where you can return your completed mail ballot.

To find where you should return your mail ballot, visit the Pennsylvania Department of State’s website , which maintains a list of all ballot-return locations in the commonwealth. You can also use the department’s website to search for your local election office by county, or visit your county election office’s website for information about drop boxes, dropoff sites, and satellite offices.

Philadelphia, as well as surrounding Bucks, Chester, Delaware, and Montgomery Counties, has a variety of dropoff locations available, according to the department’s website.

Voters casting ballots by mail, the Pennsylvania Department of State notes, must return their own ballots, and in most cases cannot do so for other voters. Voters with a disability, however, can have someone they have given written permission to return their ballot for them.

Mail ballots cannot be returned to your local polling place — they must go to your county board of elections. But if you received a mail ballot and want to vote in person, instead, you can still vote at your local polling place, provided you bring your incomplete mail ballot with you.

Once you have returned your ballot, you can track it on the Pennsylvania Department of State’s website to see that it has been received.