When I signed up online last year for mail-in voting, I checked off the box to request “permanent” notifications for not only 2020 but for each succeeding year.

I thought this meant that I would get ballots automatically for this year’s May 18 primary and the Nov. 2 general election, but now I found out that there is another step in the process.

I recently received a letter from my election bureau along with a form - “Pennsylvania Application for Mail-in Ballot.” The letter said that even though I had indicated that I requested to be on the election bureau’s permanent list of mail-in voters, I had to fill out the application for this year’s election and send it back, after which I will receive the ballot when they have been printed.

So, I wondered, if I checked the “permanent” box when I first signed up in 2020, why do I have to fill out another application this year, and, presumably, in each subsequent year. This seems like a needless extra bureaucratic step that costs our counties money. (By the way, I must add my 55-cent stamp, so it’s costing me money, too.) Regrettably, it also adds to the confusion surrounding mail-in and absentee ballots.

The letter I received also contains an option to request canceling my permanent voter status in case I choose to vote in person.

I am not going to regurgitate the gory details of how confusion played a role in the 2020 presidential election that led to all sorts of sordid issues leading up to the riot at the Capitol in Washington, D.C., and the second impeachment and acquittal of former President Donald Trump.

Mail-in voting became very popular in 2020 after the Legislature passed and Gov. Tom Wolf approved this no-excuses-needed alternative to in-person voting in the midst of a worldwide novel coronavirus pandemic.

Because of the intense interest in the presidential race, a record 9,091,371 registered voters became eligible in Pennsylvania. About one-third cast mail-in ballots. With a record 6.8 million votes cast, President Joe Biden defeated Trump by 81,660 votes and captured Pennsylvania’s 20 electoral votes.

If you voted in person in 2020 but want to mail in your ballot this year, you can apply online or by contacting your board of elections office in your county seat - Jim Thorpe (Carbon), Pottsville (Schuylkill), Easton (Northampton), Stroudsburg (Monroe), or Allentown (Lehigh).

You will receive a confirmation to let you know that your application has been received and verified. Then, nothing will happen for a while, because ballots cannot be printed until the deadline passes for candidates to file nominating petitions for the offices they are seeking and the election bureau staff checks the validity of the petitions.

There also will be statewide questions for voters on the primary ballot, including whether the governor will be limited to one 21-day disaster declaration, after which the General Assembly would have to approve subsequent extensions, and whether candidates for the three state appellate courts - Commonwealth, Superior and Supreme - would run in districts rather than statewide as they do now.

To those of us who are not registered with either of the major political parties, we are entitled to vote on these ballot questions in the primary but not for any Democrat or Republican candidates.

Once your ballot arrives in the mail, you must follow the directions carefully in filling it out, after which you place the completed ballot into the security envelope, which is then placed into the mailing envelope. Don’t forget to sign and date the mailing envelope.

You can either mail your ballot or drop it off in person at your county board of elections office. If you choose to drop it off in person, only you can do this; you can’t have a family member or friend do it.

If you vote by mail-in ballot, you cannot show up at a polling place on Election Day to vote. If you do not submit your mail-in ballot in time to be received in the Election Bureau by Election Day, you can either take it to the Election Bureau office or cast a provisional ballot at your polling place.

If you mailed your ballot too late, or if you are not sure whether the county received your completed ballot, you can vote a provisional ballot at your polling place. If you were sent a mail-in ballot, but your polling place has no record of it, you can vote by provisional ballot. If the county does receive your completed mail-in ballot in time (by 8 p.m. Election Day), this ballot - not your provisional ballot - will be counted.

If you do ask to be placed on the “permanent” mail-in voter list, a mail-in ballot application should have been mailed to you by Feb. 1. (Mine didn’t arrive until Feb. 11.)

If you complete and return the application, the county will send you ballots for all of the elections that take place for 2021, including any special elections. As of now, none of the five counties has any special elections scheduled.

Counties must wait for the decision of court proceedings affecting ballot contents before sending mail-in ballots, but they must begin to send out these ballots no later than the second Tuesday before the election. This would be May 4 for the primaries and Oct. 19 for the general election.

By Bruce Frassinelli | tneditor@tnonline.com

The foregoing opinions do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editorial Board or Times News LLC.