If you're planning to vote by mail in the Florida primary and you haven't requested your ballot yet, time is running out. The deadline to ask for one is Thursday, Aug. 6.

By this point, you may want to request yours in person at your local Supervisor of Elections office, or through their website. The U.S. Post Office clarified this year that just getting your request in a mailbox by Thursday afternoon might not be fast enough. If you do mail your request, be sure to get it manually postmarked at the post office to make sure it's counted in time.

Many Floridians have already turned theirs in. Nearly 600,000 of the 1.3 million primary ballots sent out so far have been submitted as of Aug. 4, with Democrats having a slight edge over Republican voters, according to Florida Division of Elections data. Nearly 20,000 people have already voted at early voting locations that opened on Monday, Aug. 3, in some counties.

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The primary election will narrow down the candidates for governor, a U.S. senator, some U.S. representatives, the state's chief financial officer and commissioner of agriculture, some circuit court judges, and various local races.

Here's what to know about voting by mail in Florida, and what's changing.

The primary election day is Tuesday, Aug. 18.

The deadline to request a mail-in ballot is 5 p.m. on Thursday, Aug. 6.

You must now make the request again every calendar year for the next regularly scheduled general election.

In March, President Donald Trump issued an executive order requiring states to submit voting records to be compared against federal data. The results would be compiled into a list of confirmed U.S. citizens eligible to vote in each state, with severe penalties for anyone ineligible who tries to vote, and any officials or volunteers who help them.

The order also directed the U.S. Post Office not to deliver ballots to anyone on each state's newly approved mail-in ballot list. Democratic officials in nearly two dozen states successfully sued to block the order, saying the database was severely flawed and could prevent eligible Americans from voting. An appeals court upheld the ruling.

The Trump administration has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to weigh in.

The mandatory early voting days will begin on Aug. 10, but voting started on Aug. 3 in some counties.

Voters may drop off vote-by-mail ballots at any early voting location during early voting hours and at any Supervisor of Elections office during business hours.

The general election will be on Tuesday, Nov. 3. The mandatory early voting period runs from Oct. 24 - 31.

The deadline to register to vote for that election, if you haven't registered yet, is Monday, Oct. 5.

The deadline to request a mail-in ballot for the general election is Thursday, Oct. 22.

DeSantis was first elected in 2018 and began his term in office on Jan. 8, 2019. He was re-elected by a landslide in 2022.

However, Florida law restricts governors to two consecutive terms, so DeSantis is ineligible to run again in this year's gubernatorial election. He will leave office in Jan. 2027.

C. A. Bridges is a journalist for the USA TODAY Network-Florida's service journalism Connect team. You can get all of Florida's best content directly in your inbox each weekday by signing up for the free newsletter, Florida TODAY.

This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: Florida primary deadline to request vote-by-mail ballot almost here