Table 3: States With Permanent Absentee Voting Lists

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This table is part of NCSL’s Voting Outside the Polling Place report.

Some states permit voters to join a permanent absentee/mail ballot voting list, also known as a “single sign-on” list. Voters who request to be on this list automatically receive an absentee/mail ballot for each election. This option may be offered to all voters, or to a limited number of voters based on certain criteria. 

Five states and Washington, D.C., allow any voter to join a permanent absentee/mail ballot list and will mail that voter an absentee ballot for each election going forward: Arizona, District of Columbia, Maryland, Montana, New Jersey and Virginia.

Ten states permit voters with permanent disabilities to join a permanent list: Alabama, Connecticut, Delaware, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, New York, Tennessee, West Virginia and Wisconsin. Louisiana and Wisconsin also make this option available to senior voters. 

An additional six states not included on the table automatically send absentee/mail ballot applications to voters on a permanent list. This differs from the states in the table below since voters must return the application before receiving an absentee/mail ballot.

• Michigan (MCL 168.759e), Minnesota (Minn. R. 8210.0200) and Pennsylvania (25 P.S. § 3146.2(e1)) permit any voter to join a permanent list to receive absentee/mail ballot applications before each election. Voters on this list in Michigan and Minnesota receive applications before each election; voters in Pennsylvania receive applications at the beginning of the year and, upon submittal, the voter will receive an absentee/mail ballot for all elections that year. 
• Massachusetts (M.G.L. Ch. 54, §86) and Missouri (Mo. Rev. Stat. §115.284) send permanently disabled voters absentee/mail ballot applications each election.
• Alaska (Alaska Admin. Code tit. 6, § 25.650) permits the election supervisor to designate a person as a permanent absentee voter and mail that voter an absentee/mail ballot application if the voter lives in a remote area, is a resident of a long-term care facility or is disabled.