Nov.1 deadline to get mail-in ballots

The deadline to apply for a vote-by-mail ballot for the Nov. 8 Presidential General Election is Tuesday, Nov. 1.
As of Oct. 25, more than 96,000 of Santa Cruz County’s 155,067 registered voters have requested to vote by mail. The deadline to register to vote was Oct. 24. The county elections officials are continuing to process registrations, so voter registration numbers have not yet been finalized.
To request a vote-by-mail ballot, voters can do one of the following:
Go online to www.votescount.com and fill out the online application, call 831-454-2060, or complete the application that can be found on the back cover of the county’s Voter Information Guide that has been mailed to voters and either bring it in or fax it to 831-454-2445.
Vote-by-mail ballot applications are also available at the City Clerk’s office in Scotts Valley.
Many voters use the vote-by-mail applications supplied by various political campaigns. Santa Cruz County elections officials, however, stress that voters have the legal right to deliver the applications directly to the local elections official rather than the political campaign.  Returning vote-by-mail applications to anyone other than the elections official may cause a delay that could interfere with the voter’s right to vote, officials warned.
Early voting at the County Clerk/Elections Department in Santa Cruz and the Watsonville City Clerk’s Office at 275 Main Street, 4th Floor, continues to be available during regular weekday hours from 8am to 5pm. In addition to the regular business hours, the offices will offer weekend voting on Nov. 5 and 6, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Voters may return their ballot by mail or they may drop it off in one of the convenient drive up drop boxes until 8pm, Tuesday, November 8. The drop boxes are available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, no postage required. Drop box locations is in Scotts Valley, 1 Civic Center. Drive in the City Hall parking lot
Santa Cruz County voters may also drop their voted ballot off at any polling place in Santa Cruz County on Election Day. A list of polling places can be found online at www.votescount.com.
Ballots hand delivered or dropped off must be received by an elections official in the county of the voter’s residence no later than 8 p.m. on Nov. 8. Ballots mailed must be signed, dated, and postmarked on or before Nov. 8 and received in the mail by the elections official no later than Monday, Nov. 14.
It is important for voters to sign their vote-by-mail ballot return envelope in their own handwriting, in addition to printing their name, dating the envelope, writing their address where they live in Santa Cruz County, and providing a phone number or email if we need to contact the voter. If there is no signature on the vote-by-mail ballot return envelope or if the signature on the envelope does not compare to the voter’s signature on his or her voter’s registration card, elections officials cannot count the ballot