Camden County officials have started to send out mail-in ballots to registered voters.

Cherry Hill Township is the first municipality that will receive the ballots. The county sent out nearly 60,000 of them on Friday as officials begin the process that will continue over the next week and a half.

“Normally we would have somewhere around 60,000 voters that will vote by mail and most of them get it correct. Now we’re going to have almost six times that amount, so this is going to be new to a lot of voters,” Camden County Deputy Clerk John Schmidt says.

The county printed out 57,000 paper ballots and loaded them onto delivery trucks headed to the post office. Schmidt says that the county will have 340,000 vote-by-mail ballots sent out by Oct. 5. Each one contains instructions on how to complete it, including making sure it is placed in a secure envelop so that it can be counted.

The envelopes have a self-adhesive so that the voter does not have to lick it. The county says that the next challenge will be getting all of the ballots back and sorted. Officials say that the earlier the ballots are sent back, the better.

“We are encouraging everyone to return your ballots as early as possible to avoid any delays. As I said earlier, the No. 1 reason for a rejected ballot is because it was late,” Schmidt says.

Voters can mail the ballots back, drop it off at the board of elections, drop it off at a ballot drop box situated around the county or drop it off at a polling location on Election Day.

Camden County officials say that they will notify voters by mail that their ballot has been received by sending out postcards. Voters can also check out the status of their ballots online at the state’s election website.