The Fulcrum is publishing a series of articles to help people navigate the shifting laws that govern elections. This, the third article, covers the deadlines for voting by mail.
Two years ago, with the Covid-19 pandemic raging across the country, 43 percent of voters cast their ballots by mail – a massive increase over prior elections.
Now that people have a taste for it, and with more states either switching to all mail elections or loosening the restrictions on absentee ballots, we can expect to see a large percentage choose that option this year.
But voters who do opt to vote by mail need to be aware of not one but two deadlines: first, to apply for a mail-in ballot and, second, when to submit the ballot in order for it to be counted. We’ve done the work for you.
While “absentee” and “mailed” ballots are often lumped into the same category of voting, as they both use the postal system, there are some differences. Absentee ballots may require a more formal application in which the voters need to specify the reasoning for using such a ballot (such as being away from home for college, work or military service, or due to health concerns or disabilities). Vote-by-mail may have only referred to the states that generally do not have in-person voting.
However, since the outbreak of the pandemic, mailed ballots have become a much more popular choice to cast a ballot and have become synonymous with absentee ballots. And a number of states that required a reason to use an absentee ballot have become “no excuse” states, allowing anyone to request such a ballot.
If you live in one of the eight states that proactively send all voters a mail-in ballot (California, Colorado, Hawaii, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, Vermont and Washington), you do not need to worry about the application deadline – unless you have updated your address. Utah, for example, required such notices to be filed 11 days before the election.
Similarly, California, Colorado, Hawaii and Oregon require updates to mailing locations to be submitted five to eight days out.
Mississippi, New Hampshire, and North Dakota do not have a specific deadline for which an absentee ballot application needs to be received; however, Vote.org recommends requesting the ballot seven days before Election Day.
Seven states — Wyoming, Delaware, Vermont, South Dakota, Montana, Minnesota, and Connecticut — have received-by deadlines of one day before Election Day for absentee applications or updates, the most forgiving out of all the states. Once again, Vote.org recommends applying for an absentee ballot at least seven days before the election.
Every other state has mailed ballot application deadlines spanning between a month before Election Day to three days before people hit the in-person polls. Check with your state for specific deadlines.
Additional reading:
Once voters have submitted their absentee ballot applications, they then must focus on the deadline for returning the ballot to election officials. Many states — such as Rhode Island, New Mexico, Nebraska and Kentucky — require mail-in ballots to be received by sometime on Election Day.
Others like Florida, Alabama and Minnesota have different same-day deadlines for mailing absentee ballots rather than delivering them by hand. Depending on the state, voters will have an earlier receive-by time for in-person delivered ballots compared to mailed ballots, or the reverse.
North Dakota, Ohio and Alaska, among others, choose to emphasize the postmarked date and will honor the ballot when received by a specified date after Election Day. For example, California requires mailed ballots to be postmarked by Election Day and received no later than seven days after the election. New Jersey requires postmarked ballots to be received 144 hours after polls close.
No two states have the same procedure so it is always important to double check with your state to be informed of with their voting system.
The Voting Rights Lab has created a resource for tracking changes to vote-by-mail policies in each state.
A golden tray sits on the Resolute Desk as President Donald Trump speaks during an announcement on American nuclear innovation in the Oval Office at the White House on July 24, 2026, in Washington, D.C. Trump is signing multiple executive orders targeting the nuclear energy sector and easing rules for new reactors and nuclear fuel supply chains.
Trump’s hubris rivals the fallen heroes of ancient Greek mythology
In January, the New York Times asked President Donald Trump if there were any limits on his global powers.
“Yeah,” the president responded, “there is one thing. My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me.”
That was eight months ago, but fortunately Christopher Nolan’s blockbuster adaptation of “The Odyssey” has made ancient Greek literature newly relevant. Before that window closes, I’d like to talk about hubris.
Today, the term mostly means excessive pride or arrogance. That’s part of what the Greeks meant by it too, but the meaning was a bit richer and more specific. Hubris was an insolent or outrageous act that offended the gods, often because the transgressor was claiming abilities or authorities that solely belonged to supreme beings.
Nolan renamed and slightly modified the concept of xenia for the film, calling it “Zeus’ law.” In the director’s telling, mortals should follow the rules laid out by the gods, specifically the requirement to treat strangers with respect lest they be gods in disguise.
In a sense, hubris is the opposite, or at least the rejection, of xenia. The hubris of the suitors, and at times Odysseus himself, invites punishment by the gods and their mortal instruments.
Which brings me back to Donald Trump. His claim that there are no constraints on his personal power to dictate events on the global stage was one of the greatest expressions of hubris ever uttered by a political leader.
Trump’s claim was obviously false when he made it.
He vowed that he could end the Russia-Ukraine war in 24 hours. He’s proved powerless to make that happen. If he had divine powers to work his will, why would he have balked at implementing his tariffs so often that Wall Street adopted the “TACO trade” term for his deals? “TACO” stands for “Trump always chickens out.”
And why would Trump have made so many embarrassing concessions to China — from rescinding tariffs on Chinese goods to allowing them to buy crucial and incredibly valuable computer chips?
But Trump saw his success at capturing Venezuelan strongman Nicolas Maduro as proof of his ability to launch missiles to the same effect as Zeus’ lightning bolts. Trump believed he was the most powerful man who ever lived.
This is no exaggeration. In March, when the Iran invasion seemed successful, Trump gave a document penned by“Presidential Historian David King” to New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan purporting to prove that Trump was “the most powerful person to have EVER walked this planet.” King was, in fact, a businessman and occasional caddy for legendary golfer Gary Player.
King compared Trump favorably to many of history’s most powerful, and often heinous, figures: Alexander the Great, Attila the Hun, William the Conqueror, Napoleon Bonaparte, Joseph Stalin, Genghis Khan, Mao Tse Tung, Adolf Hitler and Vladimir Lenin. Many of these men thought they were the most powerful person in the world, too. And many were defeated precisely because they believed it.
At least Napoleon and Hitler had a string of truly impressive victories before they learned the folly of hubris. The limits on Trump’s power have been exposed by far less august forces than the combined might of the allies in World War II or the fearsome Russian winter.
Iran is a comparatively middling power. But the regime’s ability to absorb punishment while imposing its will on the Strait of Hormuz has proved to be a greater constraint on Trump’s power than his morality or mind. We should note that, at least rhetorically, his morality has not proved much of a constraint. He has repeatedly promised to destroy Iranian “civilization” if the regime refuses to capitulate.
But they haven’t — and won’t anytime soon — because the regime’s tolerance for pain far outstrips Trump’s. The combined fear of skyrocketing oil prices, outrage of Gulf state potentates, diminishing weapon supplies and domestic unpopularity is doing the work that international law, congressional oversight and the collective opinion of foreign policy experts can’t or won’t do.
If I considered Trump more heroic than reason and facts could allow, I would say his Sisyphean predicament has the whiff of Greek tragedy to it. Trump is vexed by the fact that the Iranians won’t honor deals or ratify his countless premature claims of victory — giving new meaning to his vow that his presidency would make people tired of winning. It’s almost like they’re out-Trumping Trump.
Things might have gone better if he’d heeded that great Greek tragedian Sophocles: “For Zeus utterly abhors the boasts of a proud tongue.”
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Jonah Goldberg is editor-in-chief of The Dispatch and the host of The Remnant podcast. His Twitter handle is @JonahDispatch.