Political campaigns

The Florida campaign mail calendar: ballots, early voting, Election Day, and your order-by math

In Florida, people start voting weeks before Election Day. Here are the dates that decide when your mail has to land, where each comes from in state law, and how to count back to the day you approve your artwork.

Published Sat, Oct 17, 2026 · Updated Fri, Oct 23, 2026

• Timelines
• Vote by mail
• Early voting
• Florida
• Broward County
• Palm Beach County
• Miami-Dade County

A Florida campaign that plans its mail around Election Day plans for the wrong date. Mail ballots reach voters more than a month earlier, and early voting opens more than a week before. This guide lists the dates that matter, where each one comes from, and how to count back from them to the day your artwork has to be approved. For the ways to get a piece into a mailbox in the first place, see Direct Mail 101.

The dates that drive everything

These are the dates for the November 3, 2026 general election in Broward, Palm Beach and Miami-Dade.

Where the early-voting dates come from

State law sets a floor. Early voting "shall begin on the 10th day before an election that contains state or federal races and end on the 3rd day before the election", and a supervisor may add days, starting as early as the 15th day (s. 101.657(1)(d)). For this election the required days run from October 24, 2026 to October 31, 2026.

Broward, Palm Beach and Miami-Dade all open on the 15th day, the earliest the law allows: Monday, October 19, 2026. Other counties may start later, so check yours.

What the dates mean for your mail

Think of the calendar as three moments, each with its own mailer.

1. Before ballots arrive. A voter who gets a ballot in the first days of the mailing window may fill it in that week. Your first piece should already be in the mailbox.
2. Before early voting. The second piece should land before the polls open for early voting, so it reaches people who vote in person in the first days.
3. To the people who haven't voted. The third piece goes only to voters who haven't returned a ballot. The vote-by-mail data guide shows how to find them.

Counting back to your approval date

Every timeline we publish starts on the day your artwork is approved and counts business days, skipping weekends and federal holidays. We aim to have mail land at least a day before the date that matters. Here is the latest approval date for each kind of mail for the November 3, 2026 election, from the same math our timeline uses:

Each date counts back the slow end of the window. USPS publishes service standards for Marketing Mail and says plainly that it "does not guarantee the delivery … within a specified time" (DMM 243.3.1.1), so treat every mail date here as a planning window. The EDDM timeline guide explains where those days go.

A worked example: three pieces for a city race

Say you are running in a city with about 5,000 homes, your voter list for the race has about 5,000 names, and you plan the three mailers above.

• Piece one, every door: 5,000 of our 6.5" × 9" EDDM postcards, $1,395 to print and prepare plus about $1,300 in postage at 26¢ a piece.
• Pieces two and three, voters only: 5,000 list postcards each time, $1,650 for print and prep plus about $1,450 to $2,000 in postage at 29¢ to 40¢ a piece.

That is about $8,895 to $9,995 for all three. The third piece gets smaller and cheaper if you drop the voters who have already returned a ballot.

City races in March

Not every race is on the November ballot. All Palm Beach County municipal elections fall on the second Tuesday in March, March 9, 2027, and the Supervisor of Elections lists early voting as "Not available" for them. Voters must register by February 8, 2027 and request a mail ballot by 5 p.m. on February 25, 2027 (Palm Beach SOE). Four Broward cities vote the same day; Broward's page tells their voters "you have the option to vote-by-mail or in-person" (Broward municipal elections).

In Palm Beach's March elections a mail ballot is the only way to vote before Election Day, so the first piece still needs to land before ballots reach voters. Ask your Supervisor of Elections when the mail ballots for your city go out. Which election is my city's? lists the dates by county.

Or send us your date

Open the timeline, pick your election and the day you expect your artwork to be approved, and it shows when each item lands. Or send us your date and we'll map all three pieces with you.

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