#AskJAXTDY: Does the hefty mail-in ballot require extra postage?

Q: The November election ballot is packed with candidates and ballot issues, including six state constitutional amendments.

And some cities have additional local issues. Atlantic Beach residents, for example, will decide on six more local referendums.

With all those issues, Jacksonville Today reader Julie S. wonders about the cost of mailing back a beefy ballot.

She says a friend went to the post office with one First Class stamp and was charged $1.01 more to mail back the ballot.

Julie asks:

Julie also wonders what happens to ballots mailed with insufficient postage.

“I realize they can be dropped off in a drop box or during Early Voting, but that defeats the purpose for those who need to be able to mail it in,” she says.

A: Whether a mail-in voter has to pay to return their ballot depends on where they live.

Duval County Supervisor of Elections Jerry Holland says the postage question is not an issue in his county.

“In Duval, we pay for the postage coming back,” Holland said. “But in counties that don’t, you will have to add additional stamp.”

Nassau County Supervisor of Elections Janet Adkins says it is the same for her vote-by-mail voters –no postage is needed. But Clay County and St. Johns counties are different.

St. Johns County’s supervisor’s office has an pop-up notice on its website: “When mailing your vote-by-mail ballot back to the Elections Office, the required postage is two First Class Stamps or two Forever Stamps,” the notice says. It also has the telephone number for questions: 904-823-2238.

Clay County Supervisor Chris Chambless says his county prints its return envelopes in bulk to cover the entire election season to reduce the cost.

“With that said, the instructions on both the return envelope and the voter instructions state ‘to include sufficient postage,’” he says.

“The good news is that to date, we have received over 10% returned voted ballots thus far, with the majority of the returned containing only one stamp and without delay,” Chambless says. “Additionally, we have not received any information from citizens of ballots being returned for insufficient postage.”

As for the return address, Chambless said Clay’s return envelope has its address and “the ballot would be delivered to us.”

The state Division of Elections indicates that more than 76,000 vote-by-mail ballots had been cast as of Friday for the Nov. 5 election.

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