West Virginia Absentee Ballot Process

Reasons for voting absentee - you are:

• Attending school
• Traveling outside the county for business or personal reasons
• Injury, illness, physical disability or advanced age
• Incarcerated or serving home confinement for misdemeanor, and legally registered to vote
• Work hours and distance from county seat
• Work assignment requires living temporarily outside the county (4 years or less)
• Service as election or appointed or federal official requires living temporarily outside country

To download the absentee ballot application, use your state's resource. Your request for an absentee ballot must be received no later than the 6th day before the election. Unless you are voting absentee by mail because of illness or disability, the ballot must be mailed to an out-of-county address. You may apply as early as eighty-four days before the election, but the ballots are not ready for mailing to you until six weeks before the election.

Mailed ballots must be postmarked by Election Day and received no later than five days after Election Day in order to be counted. You can hand-deliver your ballot, but those must be received not later than the day before Election Day. You can track your ballot to see where it is in the process.

If you are a participant in the West Virginia Secretary of State's Address Confidentiality Program or you have a permanent, physical disability that prevents you from going to a polling place, you can apply for permannent absentee voting.

If you're in a hospital or other health care facility on Election Day or are a poll worker appointed to a precinct other than your own after Early Voting you can apply for emergency absentee voting. Some counties allow for emergency absentee voting in other situations, so be sure to check with your County Clerk for more information.