First 2024 Election Mail Ballots Scheduled to Go Out This Week

While there are around 60 days until Election Day on Nov. 5, the first mail-in ballots are slated to reach voters starting this week.

The first batch of ballots are typically sent out to military and overseas voters. Under federal law, that must happen at least 45 days before an election—which this year is Sept. 21.

“The county boards of elections will begin to mail absentee ballots to eligible voters who requested one for the 2024 general election,” the site says.

Voter registration deadlines vary by state, with most falling between eight and 30 days before the election, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. The deadline is Oct. 7 in Georgia, one of this year’s most prominent presidential battlegrounds.

Related Stories

Other than Pennsylvania, the states that begin mailing ballots to voters more than 45 days before the election are Arkansas, Delaware, Kentucky, Minnesota, North Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, West Virginia, and Wisconsin, according to the organization.

Meanwhile, Alabama, Idaho, Indiana, Louisiana, Michigan, New Jersey, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, Texas, Virginia, and Wyoming will start mailing ballots to voters 45 days before the election.

“Approximately 2 million ballots statewide have already been printed with Kennedy’s name on them, and the first ballots will be sent to absentee voters in eight days,” the board said on Aug. 29.

The first presidential debate is set for Sept. 10 between Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic Party’s nominee. Her pick for vice president, Tim Walz, and Trump’s Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) have agreed to an Oct. 1 debate hosted by CBS News in New York City.

It’s not clear if any other debates will be held. Last week, Trump publicly suggested he might pull out of the ABC debate, citing his own concerns about bias at the network, but said in a follow-up post on Truth Social that he will attend the debate. He also suggested a debate be held on Fox News, but the Harris camp declined that offer.

Trump, the Republican nominee, is also scheduled to be sentenced in his New York hush money case on Sept. 18. But his lawyers have asked the judge to delay the proceeding until after Election Day. A decision is expected in early September.

Prosecutors wrote that due to “the defense’s newly stated position, we defer to the Court on whether an adjournment is warranted to allow for orderly appellate litigation of that question, or to reduce the risk of a disruptive stay from an appellate court pending consideration of that question.”

Merchan is also scheduled to rule on a Trump request to overturn the guilty verdict that was handed down against him in late May. His attorneys separately sought to have the verdict overturned due to a Supreme Court ruling on presidential immunity, arguing that some evidence prosecutors had used should be now omitted.

The former president was convicted by a New York jury on May 31 on 34 counts of falsifying business records to conceal payments made during the 2016 election. He had pleaded not guilty to the charges, often describing them as politically motivated and designed to interfere with the 2024 election.

That conviction was the first time in U.S. history that a current or former president was convicted of a felony charge.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.