I saw a US friend of mine yesterday, he sent his vote to the Embassy in Bern to be sent back with others in the diplomatic bag.

US Embassy says that ballots should be received in the Embassy for transmittal through the Diplomatic Pouch no later than October 15, 2020. Ballots received after that date will be forwarded, but may arrive too late to be counted
https://ch.usembassy.gov/voting-09-29-2020-2/
(This is publicly available, so I can share it, right?)

We sent ours via Swiss Post on 21 September. USPS (same Swiss Post tracking number) shows that they are out for delivery this morning--just under two weeks.

Someone who votes in another state was able to do it all electronically and it looked so efficient and secure. Wish it was that easy for all of us.

FYI, for all US voters (which I hope is all Americans ) :

This year, more than ever, we are seeing how important those down-ballot elections are, especially the judgeships.

It's difficult to keep up with these races, and the retention questions, as there are so many.

My state and city bar associations post recommendations for all judicial races/retention questions, rating the candidates highly qualified, qualified, not recommended or not qualified. This helps me to focus by highlighting where further investigation might be warranted.

I'd imagine most state and many local bar associations publish similar ratings.

I scanned mine in and emailed it yesterday to my State's voting office - thank goodness that my State is so progressive!

Are you able to track your ballots in the US as well?

When I put my tracking number into the Post.ch site, all I get is a 'Verzollungsprocess abgeschlossen' date. (A full week after I had mailed it, by the way.)

No further information.

I spoke to the lady at our post office, and she didn't know if international registered A post could be tracked in any country outside Switzerland.

BTW, a greeting card sent international A, unregistered, on the same day has already arrived at it's destination.

Now I really am worried.

You can go to the US Postal Service website https://www.usps.com/manage/ and put in the same swiss tracking number.

Thank you, Charlotte, thank you!

The ballots have arrived at the Chicago distribution center, now in transit to the BoE.

Big sigh of relief!

Thanks again!

Perfect, thank you. I'm able to track it by entering the tracking number generated by the barcode on my receipt.

However, just a scan of the barcode generated a code of 01RDXXXXXXXXXCH, I was getting no where with it. I eliminated the 01 in the beginning and it worked. OR Maybe it was just me not doing something right

It shows up on USPS, stating that origin post is preparing shipment and doesn't have a delivery date just yet. It was mailed out on Sept 30.

Can I mail the ballot directly with the official return envelope? Or do you recommend using another envelope around it?

I took mine to the post office in the official return envelope, and they were ready to throw it into the sack without postage until I pointed out that the envelope was post-paid only in the US. Mine still hasn't been received nearly two weeks after being posted, and I'm not filled with confidence about the competence of either the Swiss or US postal services.

My reply from page 1 of this thread:

You also still have time to send your ballot with the diplomatic pouch, also mentioned above. I never knew that was an option; maybe it's new.

From the WI Elections Commission website:

As a Wisconsin voter: make sure your absentee envelope has a witness name, address and signature or the ballot will not count.

I read on another thread that N. Carolina absentee voters also will need witnesses. Sorry don’t know any details but a court ruling requires this for all new votes being cast.

Beyond frustrated now.

Our ballots appear to be lost.

They arrived in Chicago on 2 October, have been listed as 'in transit' ever since. No new info since 7 October.

I have tried to instigate a search via the USPS website, but it appears their forms will not accept a non-US sender address... even for international mail.

There does not appear to be an e-mail address that does not require the above form, and calling the customer service line results in 'we have no information other than what is on the website'.

I've asked Swiss Post to put in a search request, but as it is already known that the mail reached the US there isn't much they can do.

Any ideas of anyone else I could contact or other approaches I could take to get a search started?

Many thanks.

hello melloncollie,
Does Illinois have a website to track the vote status?
I voted in Pennsylvania by sending it first to the embassy here so I didnt have any tracking info on the US side. I was able to login to the PA website and see that my ballot has been received and counted.

Maybe your ballot has actually been delivered just not updated on the postal site.
hope you vote made it...

I checked on this yesterday. We voted in September using the NC online portal and our ballots were accepted almost right away. But when I saw this news item, I contacted our local board of elections.

The witness requirement does not apply to overseas or military voters.

It‘s a subtle vote suppression tactic, because changing the rules of the game in the Middle is a good way to trip up people. And the witness requirement is just dumb. Lots of instances of vote suppression, but voter fraud is not so common.

Yes it does - and my ballot is listed as 'not returned'.

I've contacted the County Clerk's office, and they have confirmed that they have not received my ballot.

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Given everything I've read about attempts to mess with election mail...

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When the USPS website proved unhelpful, I spent an hour on the phone with USPS customer service, slowly moving through the automated system. No help pertinent to my inquiry available, and even more frustrating - they hung up on me before I could get to the customer satisfaction survey!

Your tax dollars at work.

meloncollie - I know it's not much but you could ask Cook County whether you could send in the FWAB as a backup. To me, it seems possible when reading the FVAP website.

Walk through the steps on FVAP and see where you land:
https://www.fvap.gov/r3/fwab/state

It wouldn't cover all offices but it would cover the federal ones. You could then send via regular post, registered post, aim for the diplomatic pouch, etc.

At least then you'd have tried twice. I'm not sure how it works to send as a backup, never tried, but it isn't double voting.

Well here we go again.

My ballot is still listed as not returned by the county clerk's office, although USPS says it was delivered. Hopefully there is just a backlog in data entry.

OH's ballot has not even been delivered. Traced it to Chicago distribution center, no information about it's whereabouts after that.

Ballots were mailed off end of September.

Well and truly frustrated. It's bad enough that overseas votes are a target for challenges, but we can't even seem to get ours delivered and into the system.

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Thinking ahead to 2024...

Can an oversees voter fly back and vote in person? I couldn't find anything on the Cook County or Illinois BOE websites.

I voted in person even though I live overseas

The last two general elections the USPS delivered my ballot just past the deadline. Once is an accident, twice is a coincidence, thrice...

This year I dropped CHF 100 and FedEx'd my ballot. I can tell you in a few hours if this method works better.

I could have done it for much less but my ballot wasn't delivered to me in a timely manner. For that I have nobody to thank but myself, I fat-fingered my email address so it was delivered to nobody.

For all my complaints about US government (and I have a lot) the folks running the absentee/UOCAVA voting have been very nice and helpful, and even fixed my error in my application so I could vote.

UPDATE: FedEx confirms delivery of my ballot; next is confirmation from the registrar's office that it was received.