KANSAS CITY, Mo. — If you live in Missouri and still have a mail-in ballot it is too late to get it in on time. However, you do have options to make sure your voice is heard.
The Missouri Secretary of State's office told 41 Action News there is no statewide protocol for surrendering mail-ballots. It is left up to the 116 local election offices to decide how they will handle it.
For Kansas City residents who want to vote in person, they can surrender their mail-in ballot to the Kansas City Election Board office on Election Day and vote in person.
Kansas City Election Board Director, Shawn Kieffer said voters can only surrender mail-in ballots at the election board office and not at any absentee satellite locations.
In Jackson County, voters can bring mail-in ballots to any polling place on Election Day to surrender them and vote in-person.
Jackson County Election Board Democratic Director, Corey Dillon, said the process won't be too painful as long as voters bring all of the materials that came with the ballot, including the envelope.
"What I would hate is for somebody to say I had my mail in ballot, I left it at home or I threw it away and now I'm here at the polls to vote, that can't happen," Dillon said.
Dillon said if something does happen to a mail-in ballot or if a voter does not have all of the materials they can go to the Independence office at 215 N. Liberty Street where workers will help them sort it out.
According to the Clay County Board of Election Commissioners website, mail-in ballots can be surrendered at the annex and voters may vote in person.
For Platte County, Board of Elections Director Chris Hershey says voters can surrender mail-in ballots on Election Day and vote in person, but could be a lengthy process.
Hersey said poll workers will need to call over a supervisor who will need to verify the ballot was surrendered.
In Kansas, voters cannot surrender their mail-in ballot. Instead, voters who chose to vote in person after requesting a mail ballot would have to use a provisional ballot.
Nathan Carter, Johnson County Election Office Administrator, said voters should vote the mail ballots they requested if possible.
"We have eight ballot boxes around the county that’ll be available to voters 24/7 through 7:00 p.m. on Election Day," Carter said. "Ballots can also be returned to the Election Office or any Election Day polling location by 7:00 p.m. on Election Day. Ballots returned by mail must be postmarked by Election Day and received by the Election Office by Friday after Election Day. Any mail ballots returned by Election Day will be included in the first results released on Election Night."
Carter said provisional ballots are not reviewed or counted until after Election Day. Workers would check to make sure the voter didn't vote their mail ballot before counting their provisional ballot.
Provisional ballots are included in the results released after the canvass for the election on November 12," Carter said.
Bruce Newby, Wyandotte County Election Commissioner, said the process for voting a provisional ballot could be lengthy.
"The voter has to fill out a voter affirmation, which requires a signature and any provisional ballot has to have a new voter registration application and that application is on the envelope but they got to fill all that out and sign everything or their provisional ballot cannot be opened and cannot be counted," Newby said.
Newby said he feels confident most people will drop off their mail ballots or get them mailed in on time.
"We've sent out about 23,000 ballots to voters, and we already have about 18,000 of those back so they're coming back quick," Newby said. "It has to be received by us the Friday after election day so I wouldn't wait until the last day to mail it back."
