My 'vote my mail' application arrived in today's post (Michigan)

[Siwsan]

I can fill out the form, scan or take a photo and email it to my township clerk, mail, or hand deliver it to the clerk's office.

My heart says just go in and vote in person, but my brain says maybe I should just take the cautious route, since who knows what will be going on in November.

I always take great satisfaction in that final scan of my completed ballot, at my local precinct. This might be a hard behavior to change, but a responsible transition to accept.

I miss my old life.

[frazzled]

1. How are they verifying your identity?

Is a signature verification included? (I mean, someone could have stolen a ballot from someone's mailbox and emailed it in, unless some method of verification is evident.)

And how do they notify you that your ballot was counted and tabulated? (i.e., not spoiled or rejected).

Thanks. I'm just interested in how it will work in case we need to vote by mail in the fall.

[Siwsan]

2. Signature verification

The email option includes taking a photo that clearly shows the signature. And I'm curious about that notification, too. If I get more info, I'll post it.

[frazzled]

3. Yeah, I've heard mail-in voters say they could check that their ballot was received

But that doesn't mean that their ballot was tabulated. Any number of reasons could prevent it from being counted, from disputed signature (an art, not a science) to mismarking (spoiling your ballot), etc.

I once spoiled a ballot: there were something like 57 judicial retention questions on the ballot, in addition to all the other races. You had to fill in either a "yes" (retain) or "no" (don't retain). Very laborious to fill out. I must have put a "no" for one judge in the same space for the "yes" judge above. At any rate, there were two marks in the same judicial question, which I didn't catch in reviewing it myself. When I fed my ballot into the opti-scanner, it spit it out. They gave me a new ballot to correct it ... which took another 20 or 30 minutes to redo the entire thing! But I was glad I had that option so that my vote could be counted.

Even the electronic machines will alert you if you make a mistake (say, voting for four candidates for county board instead of the maximum of three).

What do they do with such situations with a mail-in ballot? I suppose they just throw it out. But then how do you know if you actually voted?

[MiniMe]

4. I got my absentee ballot today too

Filled it out and have it to go into the mail.