Nothing. They are the same.

You can view the status of your mail-in ballot by viewing your voter record on the state elections website. Due to a high volume of mail-in ballot requests, ballot requests may take up to 72 hours to appear on the site.

It goes to two places: your local registrar and this website’s sponsor, Vote Absentee Virginia. Additionally, if you learned of this site from a link sent by another organization, then that organization receives your name, contact info, and application date (but not your last 4 SSN digits). Why is partial information provided to linking organizations? Campaigns and get-out-the-vote groups work hard to reach out to potential voters. They want to know which channels are making an impact, plus they want to encourage you afterwards to return your mail-in ballot.

In 2020, the Virginia General Assembly passed several laws relating to voting, including HB 1, which allows all registered Virginia voters to vote mail-in without an excuse. Additionally, the registration deadlines have been extended and mail-in ballots will be counted as long as they are postmarked by Election Day. As a result of these changes, our form design has changed a bit from prior implementations.

By Virginia law, any registered voter can request a mail-in ballot. No excuse is required to receive a mail-in ballot.

Mail-In applications can be sent anytime but the registrar will only mail ballots starting 45 days before the election.