ANNAPOLIS, Md. (WDVM) — Maryland’s gubernatorial primary election day is just under five months away. And while that may seem far away, it’ll be here before you know it. So if you want to avoid standing in long voting lines this June, mail-in voting may be the right choice for you.

The Maryland Board of Elections will be sending out mail-in ballot request forms over the next few months. While many Marylanders are familiar with mail-in voting after the COVID-19 pandemic changed the way we conducted our elections, the process is written into the law this year.

All registered Maryland voters will get a mail-in ballot request form for the upcoming June 28 primary. If you’re not registered yet, you still have until mid-June to get registered — which you can do online or in-person at a board of elections location — and fill out the absentee request form.

If you don’t receive a request form in the next few months, you can find the form online or at your local board of elections. But some voters can already expect their forms to be slightly delayed.

“We — by the end of the year — will have mailed out over 4 million copies of this form. So it’s a big mailing,” said Nikki Charlson, deputy administrator of the Maryland Board of Elections. “So we’re going to start with Democrats and Republicans. So those will be hitting the mailboxes later this week or into next week. The rest of the voters will get them over the next couple of months.”

If you decide that mail-in voting is the right route for you, make sure your local board of elections receives your request form by June 21. You can do that either online by dropping it off directly at your local board of elections or bringing it over to the post office.

Mail-in ballots are scheduled to be sent out around May. If you don’t want to vote by mail this year, the Maryland Board of Elections says you should recycle the request form and show up on election day to fill out a ballot in person. Trying to vote both in-person and through the mail could result in your vote being voided.