Sample Ballots for the Nov. 6 Consolidated Municipal, School and Special District Election are headed for your mailbox pronto. The first of them arrived in mailboxes Friday and Saturday, with delivery continuing through this week and next.

Overall, 310,000 ballots in 42 different ballot styles – as an election in Burlingame will have different races than an election in Half Moon Bay – are being sent to San Mateo County voters.

Aren’t sure what a Sample Ballot is? It is just what it sounds like: A sample of what your actual ballot will be. Practice your vote, take notes, make mistakes or even doodle if you’re so inclined. Take your Sample Ballot with you to the polls on Election Day as your guide for casting your votes on the eSlate, or use it as a rough draft from which to complete your official Vote by Mail ballot (on which, sorry to say, doodles are not allowed). Using your Sample Ballot will make your vote go faster and avoid mistakes when they count.

The Sample Ballot also contains voluntary statements by candidates to guide your decisions and plenty of background information about the Elections Office and voting. The back cover will indicate your polling place – which we recommend you double check, as more than 60 locales have changed – and invite you to Vote by Mail if you’re not already registered to do so.

Printing and sorting machines are in full swing at Accurate Mailings in Belmont, which adds addresses and other personalized information to Sample Ballots after they’ve returned from the printer and undergone quality checks by the Elections Office. To expedite delivery, Accurate not only sorts ballots by zip code, but in the order of a postal carrier’s address-by-address route!

The process of readying the Sample Ballots for mailing began last Wednesday, with the first of them delivered to the U.S. Postal Service on Thursday. Scott Vitangeli, Accurate Mailings’ president, said it takes about 10 working days to finish the job.

Sample Ballots are readied for mailing by precinct by precinct, starting with the highest volume areas first (that makes things run more efficiently). San Mateo, which has four different ballot styles depending on where you live, was first on the list. Redwood City and Menlo Park followed. If you live in one of these spots, you may have already received yours!

Vitangeli said that Accurate has been labeling and mailing Sample Ballots for at least 18 years, back in the day when sticker address labels were the latest technological innovation. Now, ink jets bake on addresses, bar codes and other personalized information to the back cover of Sample Ballots in matter of seconds.

“To me, this is the whole election, the Sample Ballots,” Vitangeli said. “I forget all the other stuff that goes into it.”