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Voting in Texas, Florida and South Dakota

Voting Absentee in Florida, South Dakota, or Texas for 2024

Voting in Texas, Florida and South Dakota

Across the country, voting in the general election will take place on November 5, 2024. For those of you domiciled in Florida, South Dakota and Texas, keep reading to learn important dates and ensure you are prepared to vote.

Voting Absentee in Sumter County, Florida


Registering to Vote

In Sumter County, Florida you must register to vote at least 29 days before the day of the election. You can get your application for registration via the Sumter County Supervisor of Elections. First-time registration must be mailed in or delivered in person. Renewals can be completed online, by mail, or in person.

For the 2024 election cycle, voter registration deadlines are as follows:

  • Primary Election- July 22, 2024
  • General Election- October 7, 2024

 

Once you  have registered, you may request your vote by mail ballot in person, by mail, fax, phone, email or by completing your request online through the Supervisor of Elections’ website

Registered voters may also check the status of their ballot, confirm registration, request a vote by mail ballot, and more via Florida’s voter look-up tool.

Vote by mail ballots are sent 33-40 days ahead of the the election for both Primary and General Elections. Ballots must be received by Sumter County Supervisor of Elections Office by 7:00 PM local time on the day of the applicable election.

  • Primary Election- August 20, 2024
  • General Election- November 5, 2024

 

For the most current voting information for Sumter County, visit sumterelections.org.

Voting Absentee in Pennington County, South Dakota

Registering to Vote

In Pennington Country, South Dakota, you must register to vote at least 15 days before the day of the election. You can get your application for registration online.  

For the 2024 election cycle, voter registration deadlines are as follows:

  • Primary Election- May 20, 2024
  • General Election- October 21, 2024

 

More information on requesting an absentee ballot is available on the Pennington County website. Once on the site, scroll to the bottom of the page and look for the “Vote By Mail or In Person” section. 

Registered voters may check the status of their ballot and other voter-related information via the Secretary of State’s website.

Absentee ballots are available 46 days prior to Primary and General Elections. Your voted ballot MUST be received by your County Election Official on Election Day in enough time to deliver your ballot to your voting precinct before the polls close. It is recommended to get your voted ballot in to the County Election Office before Election Day.

  • Primary Election- June 4, 2024. Absentee voting begins April 19, 2024.
  • General Election- November 5, 2024. Absentee voting begins September 20, 2024.

 

For the most current voting information for Pennington County, visit https://www.pennco.org/vote.

Voting Absentee in Polk County, Texas

The Primary Election for Polk County, Texas is March 5, 2024. The General Election is November 5, 2024.

Registering to Vote

In Polk County, Texas you must register to vote at least 30 days before the day of the election. You can get your application for registration via VoteTexas.gov, a website created by the Texas Secretary of State.

For the 2024 election cycle, registration deadlines are as follows:

  • Primary Election- February 5, 2024
  • General Election- October 7, 2024

 

Early Voting

Early voting in the Primary Election is February 20- March 1, 2024.

You can only vote early by mail (they do not call it absentee voting in Texas) if:
(1) you will be away from your county on election day and during the hours that early voting is conducted; or
(2) you are sick or disabled; or 
(3) you are 65 years of age or older on election day; or
(4) you are confined in jail.

Voting by Mail

In Texas, voting absentee is a bit more complicated than in Florida and South Dakota.

Even if you have already filed to vote absentee in the primary and run-off elections held earlier in the year, you must request yet again to vote absentee in the general election unless you are 65 or older and then you only need to request absentee voting annually.

Click here for the application to vote-by-mail.

For the 2024 election cycle, you can submit your request to vote by-mail as early as January 1, 2024. Submission deadlines are as follows:

  • For the Primary Election, vote-by-mail ballots must be requested by February 23, 2024.
  • For the General Election, vote-by-mail ballot requests may be received as early as January 1 and as late as October 25. 
 
Want to see the full list of dates for 2024? Visit the VoteTexas website.
 
Once your application is received by the County Clerk, a ballot will then be mailed to you.
The ballot must be mailed to an address outside of Polk County unless you are 65 or older or disabled (no proof necessary); however, you must indicate your reason for applying for an absentee ballot, e.g. disabled, away traveling, etc.

 

Escapees Mail Service members who will be traveling outside of Polk County may have their ballots sent to the following address for a $5.00-per-ballot fee charged to their postage account to help defray the costs for this service.

Your Name
c/o Escapees RV Club
PO Box 1578
Shepherd, TX 77371

This box is for Escapees members who will be away traveling and do not have a secure temporary mailing address that they are comfortable using. Escapees Mail Service agents will forward these ballots on to you, but it is important to recognize that this can cause an additional time delay. It is always best to have your applications and ballots sent directly to you if at all possible.

You can mail your complete ballot via USPS, UPS, FedEx to:
101 W Mill ST
Ste 265
Livingston TX, 77351

 

Completed mail-in ballots must be received by the county clerk by November 5, 2024 (Election Day) at 7:00 p.m. if carrier envelope is not postmarked, OR Wednesday, November 6, 2024 (next business day after Election Day) at 5:00 p.m. if carrier envelope is postmarked by 7:00 p.m. at the location of the election on Election Day.

Escapees is always looking out for the rights of all RVers.

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Voting Absentee in Florida, South Dakota, or Texas for 2024 1

24 Responses

  1. Thanks for the info about voting by absentee ballot. I mailed my application to vote by absentee ballot on Sept 25,2018. I am a resident of Box Elder, Pennington County S.D. I use Americas Mailbox as my mailing service. Do you know when my absentee ballot will be mailed to me at Americas Mailbox. Thanks.

  2. Recently we were in South Dakota and considering once we sell our house to register the RV in SD to save $ as over 2.5 million others do. But, we heard some say that the state changed and that they lost their right to vote because they do not reside permanently in SD – is this true? We see told that the state decide that so many oriole could swing the vote of the state so made this change – please help as no savings is worth our vote?

    1. Thank you so much for this information! I just want to be sure that I am understanding correctly. I requested a ballot for the South Dakota primaries. On this request, I marked that the presidential ballot should be mailed to the same address as for the primaries. Should I assume that our presidential ballot will be automatically mailed without a separate request? I am really concerned about the turnaround time and want to get it done ASAP. Again, thank you so much for doing this.

  3. We are residents of Travis County, Texas. We are currently living in Costa Rica for the next two tears. Both my wife and I want to vote in the December General election. How can we obtain a ballot and when does the ballot need to be received in Travis County?

  4. I see I can request Vote by Mail as early as January 1 2020. And, the latest date mail-in ballots will be accepted. But, is there a date after January 1 before which mail-in ballots for the general election will not be accepted? Looking at it another way is there a period ?????? to October 23 when ballots are accepted?

    1. Your ballot should be received at the designated address during the early voting period, but no later than the election day for which you are casting your ballot.

  5. I lived all of my life in Florida until my wife and I went full time in our motor home in March 2019. We lived in Pinellas County (Clearwater) but on setting up a mail forwarding account with Traveling Mailbox we used their Orange County (Orlando) address. The Orange County Supervisor of Elections office has now rejected us both twice. Pinellas County initially filed it for us to Orange and they said there was no problem. Then we again attempted it online. The first time only I got a response; the second only my wife got one. We filed separately. Both times they’ve said we have to have a physical residence and a mailing address “residence” was unacceptable. We’re still trying.

  6. Thanks for this article and helping to facilitate voting by escapees members! I just requested my latest absentee ballot application. Maybe Escapees could do some advocating to the Texas legislature to not have to apply for absentee for every election! The county tells me that’s who decided that stupid policy. In California once you apply, you stay absentee until you change it. Texas doesn’t seem to be making it easy to vote absentee. However, Polk County did tell me that they have a new law that people over 65 can now have their absentee application be good for all elections in that year at least. Make sure you note that on your ballot application!

  7. This is our first time to apply for a ballot by mail in Texas. I have a couple of questions:

    When will we receive our ballots? The way I read it we can start returning the ballot when early voting opens (but not before) and must have it received (not post marked) before the polls close on election day. But when do we receive the ballot from the county clerk so that we can meet these deadlines?

    On the form it asks for a date range that the mailing address is valid. Is there a problem with ending the range before election day. i.e. I will be at an address from Jan 22 to April 22. Early voting and mail-in starts on April 20, election day is May 3. I am not returning to the county but only have my Polk county address after April 22. Will my application for ballot by mail be rejected?

    1. Hi Ray!

      Unfortunately, we cannot predict how long it will take for you to receive your ballot. It depends on when you submit your form, how long it takes to process, and the route it takes to get back to you. If you use a mail forwarding address, that will take an extra day or two as well.

      The Primary Election is in March. The May dates you reference are for special elections. From reviewing the Polk County Clerk’s website, it doesn’t appear that there are any special elections planned for this year. With any mail-in ballots, they must be sent to an address outside of Polk County. If you use Escapees’s mail-forwarding service, we offer our members an address outside of Polk County to which ballots can be sent. We collect mail from there, sort into your PMB, and forward to you at your request. More information about this option is in the post above.

    1. Hi Steven!
      Mail-in ballots are sent to you after you request them. If you use a mail-forwarding service, you will also need to allow time for your forwarder to receive and process it then forward it on to you.

  8. For those of us Texas absentee voters under 65, I think the correct ZIP code for Shepherd, TX is 77371 (not 77351).

    1. Easily done! 🙂

      The two counties we look at in South Dakota and Florida do not currently have any information on 2021 elections. We’ve updated the dates for Polk County, Texas.

      The voter guide is typically only done every four years or when there is a landmark vote that affects RVers. For your annual voter guide, we recommend the non-partisan League of Women Voters guides where they list candidates, issues, etc., with brief explanations of platforms of candidates and breakdowns of proposed amendments, bills, etc. https://www.lwv.org/

  9. We are currently with another mail service in Texas and were told today that we can NOT use that address in order to vote because it is not a real address. We had used it in the past but due to voter fraud and the changes recently made, they will not longer accept it. Your website says you can use Escapees addresses for voting. How are you different that other mail services?

    1. Hi Vicki!
      Without knowing which service you’re referring, I can’t answer with certainty. However, a common reason other mail forwarding services run into issues is that they are solely business addresses, which means they can’t be residential/used to confirm residency. Our mail service is headquartered in the middle of an RV park we own and operate that includes both short- and long-term rentals and leases. Often, the ability for our mail service customers to live at our addresses is what makes the difference.

  10. Hello and thank you for this excellent info.
    Last month (May) we sent in our Texas vote-by-mail request forms for the 2022 general election. They got rejected. I was just told that they need to be sent within 60 days of the election. This is a change from 2020. They are not making it any easier!

    1. Hi Darrell! Yes, we are. From the article: “Escapees Mail Service members who will be traveling outside of Polk County may have their ballots sent to the following address for a $5.00-per-ballot fee charged to their postage account to help defray the costs for this service.”

      Your Name
      c/o Escapees RV Club
      PO Box 1578
      Shepherd, TX 77371

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