At just about every Republican event this campaign season, someone is bound to talk about voting by mail.

The advice is simple:

Send in your ballot … don’t wait until Election Day … let’s beat the Democrats at their own game.

In fact, Jack Ciattarelli said much the same when he ran for governor two years ago.

So, with this year’s election a few days away, how’s the GOP doing with what insiders like to call VBMs?

Not very well. It remains clear that many Republicans just don’t want to do it.

To that end, I saw a post on one of Sen. Ed Durr’s social media pages in which a voter wrote the following:

“I don’t trust early voting. Democrats have been using this to keep the Republican votes down.”

Along those lines, another Durr supporter said voting on Election Day “proves something.”

This is quite illogical thinking, but it’s hard to see anything changing anytime soon.

It was Donald Trump who cast doubts about mail-in voting by condemning it every chance he got and those sentiments among many Republicans have not gone away.

What does all this mean?

On one hand, not all that much.

As long as people vote, it makes no difference when they do so.

However, there are benefits to voting by mail. Chiefly, your vote is cast even if for some reason, you can’t make it to the polls.

Who knows what can happen? A family emergency. A horrible storm. A sudden sickness.

There is also a psychological effect – at least to some extent.

With mail-in votes in New Jersey generally counted and released first by county tabulators, Democrats are probably going to be in the lead. So Republicans have to come from behind.

The numbers this year as of Friday – four days before Election Day – show the following:

Registered Democrats have turned in about 245,000 mail-in ballots to 79,000 for Republicans. That’s more than a 3-1 advantage for the Dems.

As for early in-person voting, the spread is not that wide. Dems are leading by an estimated 7,000 votes.

Let’s look at Durr’s LD-3. This is one of the more interesting races in the state. Durr, whose upset win two years ago made him a conservative hero, is being challenged by Democrat John Burzichelli, a former assemblyman in the district.

As of Friday, Democrats in the south Jersey district have turned in 9,627 ballots to 2,892 for Republicans.

Come next Tuesday, a lot of Durr supporters need to go to the polls and prove something.