The Green Card Lottery, a program that provides 55,000 visas to hopeful immigrants all over the world, is conducted entirely online and has not been done in paper for many years.
For this reason, no correspondence about the actual lottery is to occur through the mail, however, the second part of the lottery process, the actual green card application can be done through the mail.
How the lottery works is that you apply online to enter in the drawing to take place in May. When you register with the State Department you will receive a confirmation number. It is exceedingly important to retain this number for the at least a year.
If you register with USAGreenCardLottery.org you can feel safe in knowing that your confirmation number will be safe. The reason why this is important is that if you lose the number there is no way to check if you have won or not. You cannot simply re-register either, because if the State Department sees that you registered twice, both of your applications will be rejected.
When the results of the lottery are announced in May of the year after the registration period you can log onto the State Department’s website, type in your confirmation code and the site will inform you whether or not you are a winner.
If you have won the Green Card Lottery the next step is to actually apply for the Green Card itself, otherwise known as the Permanent Residency card.
This process can be conducted entirely through the mail, and, in fact, the Permanent Resident card will be mailed to you personally if you qualify. This is why it is very important to continually update your information with the USCIS if it changes.