Why
The single most misunderstood rule in vote-by-mail is that "postmarked by"
and "received by" are two different deadlines. A ballot postmarked on
Election Day but arriving after the receipt window is not counted, and a voter
who knows only one of the two dates can lose their vote by acting on it.
The How to Vote design treats these as two separately labelled facts and never
merges them into one sentence. That requires both dates, sourced.
What to ingest
Per state (California first), per election where it varies:
vbmPostmarkDeadline — the date the ballot must be marked by the postal
service.vbmReceivedByDeadline — the last date the county may accept a postmarked
ballot. Distinct from the above; the grace period varies by state.vbmRequestDeadline — irrelevant in all-mail states, critical elsewhere.ballotsMailedStartDate — when the county begins mailing.dropBoxCloseTime and pollCloseTime — local, and the "if you're in line at
closing you may still vote" rule depends on the latter.postagePrepaid — whether return postage is prepaid.
Explicitly not derivable
ElectionHero computed "Ballots mailed" as electionDay - 8. Invented.
Google Civic's mailOnly flag tells us an election is all-mail; it tells us
nothing about return deadlines. absenteeVotingInfoUrl is a link, not a rule,
and is not reliably populated.
Done when
Why
The single most misunderstood rule in vote-by-mail is that "postmarked by"
and "received by" are two different deadlines. A ballot postmarked on
Election Day but arriving after the receipt window is not counted, and a voter
who knows only one of the two dates can lose their vote by acting on it.
The How to Vote design treats these as two separately labelled facts and never
merges them into one sentence. That requires both dates, sourced.
What to ingest
Per state (California first), per election where it varies:
vbmPostmarkDeadline— the date the ballot must be marked by the postalservice.
vbmReceivedByDeadline— the last date the county may accept a postmarkedballot. Distinct from the above; the grace period varies by state.
vbmRequestDeadline— irrelevant in all-mail states, critical elsewhere.ballotsMailedStartDate— when the county begins mailing.dropBoxCloseTimeandpollCloseTime— local, and the "if you're in line atclosing you may still vote" rule depends on the latter.
postagePrepaid— whether return postage is prepaid.Explicitly not derivable
ElectionHerocomputed "Ballots mailed" aselectionDay - 8. Invented.Google Civic's
mailOnlyflag tells us an election is all-mail; it tells usnothing about return deadlines.
absenteeVotingInfoUrlis a link, not a rule,and is not reliably populated.
Done when
never one combined "deadline"