Good afternoon and welcome to Legal Tip Tuesday. It’s Vince Quatrini, for QuatriniRafferty and today we’re going to talk about a special legal tip and that’s voting, your legal obligation and your legal right to protect you and everybody around you. In our democracy going forward.

This year, general election as we know is November 3rd, so we have several options to vote that I wanted to talk about. Of course, in person, you can go to the poll and vote. Secondly, you can get an absentee ballot if you’re not going to be around. And a new way to vote this year is mail-in balloting. Let’s talk about mail-in balloting and how easy it is and what a nice way to be able to vote at the convenience of your time and in your home. So, here’s how it goes. Make sure you apply for the mail-in ballot before October 27th. Make sure you get that mail-in ballot back to the courthouse by November 3rd at 8 PM. You can hand carry it. There’s a possibility that will be extended but to be sure to get it in by November 3rd at 8 PM.

Now, how do you go about it? You got to apply for the mail-in ballot so you can do that by going to the courthouse to your Election Bureau. You can call the Election Bureau and ask them to send one, 724 -830-1300. You can call the Pennsylvania Department of State 717-787-5280, ask them to mail you one or go online. Fill out the application online the site, pavoterservices.pa.gov. Very easy to do just have your Pennsylvania driver’s license available. I think you need the information from that, and then once you get your mail in ballot, here’s the process. Very simple.

You complete your entire ballot in blue ink or black ink. Then you seal your ballot in the smaller secrecy envelope that they’re going to send you. So, take your ballot, put it in the small secrecy envelope and you seal that. You put that secrecy envelope inside the larger envelope that they send you and you seal that. And then on that larger envelope is a place for you to complete your voter declaration on the back of that larger envelope, then simply mail it in or again you can return it in person. Very easy to do.

So, this year we hope all of you will exercise this unique American right that we have and have had since this country was founded. It’s your opportunity to have your say and for all of us to find a way to go forward together in this wonderful democracy we live in. So, until election day November 3rd, this is Vince Quatrini, Legal Tip Tuesday. See you next time.