Let’s Talk Ballots – Drop Box Tracking and some folks still haven’t received theirs

“Dear PoPville,

My husband and I dropped our ballots off in our neighborhood drop box (in front of the local library) on Monday, but the DC board of elections tracking page still doesn’t show our ballots as received. Any guidance from DC about how long we should wait before we start to panic? We thought the drop boxes were picked up daily!”

and

“Have you seen anywhere how long it takes for DC BOE to register a returned ballot? I returned mine on Thursday and the tracker does not say it was returned yet.”

and

“I dropped my absentee ballot off in the box at Eastern Market on Monday, the first day it was open. It’s now Friday and the online tracker at the BOE is still not showing my ballot as received or accepted. What are people seeing as turnaround times for processing at the drop boxes? The boxes are supposedly being collected/emptied every day, but I’m not sure what to expect for how long it takes to mark as accepted.”

Ed. Note: An anecdotal estimate based on some emails I’ve received is 6-7 days for the tracker to start to register.

“any idea what “ballot returned” status means on the DC ballot tracker website?”

Michael Sozan writes: “D.C. voters: if you turned in your mail ballot, you can track its status at this link. If your status says RETURNED, don’t worry. That means it was received by the Board of Elections. Next step after that: it should say ACCEPTED.”

“Dear PoPville,

On Wednesday, September 30, I received my daily USPS Informed Delivery email which summarizes what I can expect in my mailbox. For that day it showed that both my and my boyfriend’s DC ballots would be arriving. Later in the evening when we checked the mail there were no ballots. Fast forward to today and we still haven’t received them. For reference, we live in a large apartment building with individual boxes for each unit.

What is our best course of action? Calling the DC Board of Elections? Anyone else missing their ballots?“