Last Chance to Make Sure Your Military Family Can Vote from Anywhere

Where are you voting from? If you or your spouse is living away from your voting residence, your military family can still vote absentee.

Here’s how (if you already requested an absentee ballot, skip to #2):

1. Register to vote and request your ballot with one form.

It’s called the Federal Post Card Application (FPCA). You can get it at FVAP.gov.

At FVAP.gov, select your State for all the info and materials you need. You can use FVAP’s online assistant to help fill out your FPCA. Or print it and fill it out by hand.

Then send it to your election office. Find the address at FVAP.gov to mail it. Or check if your State allows you to send it in by email or fax if that’s easier.

For the General Election on November 8, you should send your FPCA as soon as possible to meet voter registration deadlines in October (or later depending on your State). Check FVAP.gov for your specific deadline.

You have to send in a new FPCA every year to receive your absentee ballots for all 2016 elections — even if you’ve done it before.

2. Fill out and send in your ballot when it arrives.

Once you receive your ballot, fill it out and send it back to your election office.

Like the FPCA, you may be able to return your ballot by email or fax, so check what your State allows.

For the General Election, you should receive your ballot by early October. And you should send it back by:

November 1, 2016 if you’re stateside
October 15, 2016 if you’re outside the U.S.

If you don’t get your ballot in time, that’s no problem. Get a Federal Write-In Absentee Ballot (FWAB) from FVAP.gov. Fill it out and send it like your regular ballot. Even if you get your State ballot later, you can still fill it out and send it back (only one is counted).

After you send in your ballot, you can even check if it was received. Select your State at FVAP.gov to check the status of your ballot.

The Federal Voting Assistance Program makes it that simple. Visit FVAP.gov; call 1-800-438-VOTE; or email vote@fvap.gov to make sure you can vote from anywhere. Sign up for voting alerts at FVAP.gov and check out FVAP’s Facebook and Twitter.