2020 Election

Vote Smarter 2020: Can You Get A Mail-In Ballot But Vote In Person?

Newsy's Vote Smarter 2020 aims to provide you with all the information you'll need to safely and successfully cast your ballot this year.

Vote Smarter 2020: Can You Get A Mail-In Ballot But Vote In Person?
Charlie Riedel / AP

If you received a mail-in ballot but would rather vote in person, can you do that?

"In some states, you can bring that ballot with you and the poll workers can cancel it, and they'll be able to give you a regular ballot at the polls. It'll be like nothing happened," said Matthew Weil, the director of the Election Project at the Bipartisan Policy Center. 

"You can always go in and if they say, 'Well, we gave you an absentee ballot,' and you know that you can say, 'Well, I want to vote a provisional ballot.' And if there's no absentee ballot coming then your provisional ballot will be counted," said Lonna Atkeson, the director of the Center for the Study of Voting, Elections and Democracy at the University of New Mexico.

Even in states voting completely by mail this year, most of those people can still choose to vote in person, if they want. But in New Jersey, there's a little caveat for those who choose the in-person option.

"New Jersey is sending everyone a ballot, proactively sending every active registered voter a ballot. And to assure against fraud, they say if you decide to go to the polling booth instead to a polling place instead, on Election Day, they're going to make you cast what's known as a provisional ballot," said David Hawkings, the editor in chief of The Fulcrum.