A ballot drop box in Temescal. Credit: Christopher Groskopf Credit: Christopher Groskopf

If you’re worried about voting by mail or in person this year, there are 17 drop boxes around Oakland that you can use any time of day or night until 8 p.m. on Tuesday, November 3rd. The contents of these boxes are collected directly by the Alameda County Registrar of Voters office. Just don’t forget to sign the back of your return envelope before you put it in the box!

You don’t have to stick to the drop boxes in Oakland either; the Alameda County elections website lists dozens of other locations across the county, and they’re all fine to use if you’re registered to vote here.

The Oaklandside is here to help you vote

Nuts and bolts: How, when, where to register and vote, and what you’ll be voting for

District coverage: D1 | D3 | D5 | D7

Oakland ballot measures: Y (school bond), RR (higher dumping and blight fines), QQ (youth school board vote), S1 (stronger Police Commission)

All about: Voting in person | Voting by mail | Using ballot drop boxes

The Oaklandside doesn’t make endorsements, but we’ve compiled local voter guides for you.

Read all of our elections coverage.

Tasneem Raja headshot

Tasneem Raja is the Editor-in-Chief of The Oaklandside. A pioneer in data journalism and local nonprofit news startups, she co-founded The Tyler Loop, a nationally recognized community news platform in East Texas. She was a senior editor at NPR's Code Switch and at Mother Jones, where the team she led helped build the first-ever database of mass shootings in America. She started her career as features reporter at The Chicago Reader and The Philadelphia Weekly, and lives in Oakland with her husband and daughter.