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In a normal election year in any given state, hundreds or even thousands of absentee ballots get tossed for everything from late postmarks to open envelopes.

North Carolina rejected 546 ballots for missing witness signatures in the 2012 presidential race. Virginia tossed 216 ballots in the 2018 midterms because they arrived in an unofficial envelope. Arizona discarded 1,516 ballots for non-matching signatures the same year.

The 2020 presidential election will not be normal.

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With 29 days and counting until the Nov. 3 election, many Californians are getting their ballots in the mail this week. There are some 21 million registered voters in California, and every one of them will be getting a vote-by-mail ballot. 

In this election, how you vote may be just as important as who you vote for. A new study by the non-partisan California Voter Foundation found that on average, nearly 2% of all vote-by-mail ballots in California are rejected and that amounts to tens of thousands of voters.

On Friday, the San Diego County Registrar of Voters dropped off its first batch of outbound mail-in ballots at the post office.

Chances are good you'll find a ballot in your mailbox next week, but how can you be sure it gets to the right place when you send it back? 

For the vast majority of voters in San Diego County, finding a ballot in their mailbox is nothing new.

“San Diego voters have been used to voting by mail,” said Michael Vu, the San Diego Country Registrar of Voters. “Their preferred method is voting by mail.”