After some mail-in ballots from southern Utah went uncounted in the June primary, election officials there are urging voters to use drop boxes or vote in person.
“If you're going to vote by mail, please do it early,” said Washington County Clerk/Auditor Ryan Sullivan.
If you are mailing in your ballot, it must be postmarked by the day before Election Day. This year, that’s Nov. 4.
If they wait until the last few days before Election Day, Sullivan said voters should walk their ballots into the post office and “have the postal clerk actually stamp it there in front of you” with that day’s date.
The extra attention on voting early is an effort to avoid a repeat of what happened earlier this year. Most Utahns live along the Wasatch Front and their mail is processed in Provo. But in southern Utah, it is sent to Las Vegas, which is closer.
In August, Republican congressional candidate Colby Jenkins petitioned the Utah Supreme Court for more than 1,000 disqualified ballots to be counted from the June 25 GOP primary election. Of the 659 ballots rejected for late postmarks, 244 were processed in Las Vegas. The court rejected his petition because election officials complied with state statutes.
Lesa Sandberg, chair of the Washington County Republican Party, said not being able to count some ballots was frustrating for both primary candidates. But she doesn’t think mail being processed in Las Vegas is an issue. Rather, “the problem is that people don't realize when mail is picked up, when mail is postmarked, and how long it takes,” she said.
Shelly Jackson, deputy director of elections in the Lt. Governor’s Office, hopes voters will learn from the primary.
“Now that this issue was made public, they can take a little bit of responsibility” and mail their ballots early, drop them at a drop box or vote in person, she said.
Drop boxes are located throughout Washington County, including some that are open 24 hours. The deadline to deposit a ballot in a drop box is 8 p.m. on Election Day.
Sullivan can guarantee that “if you put your ballot in a drop box, it's going to get picked up and brought to our election center,” since the boxes are monitored with cameras and emptied by his staff.
When Sullivan took his role, he had concerns about how elections are run, he recalled. But he said every time his office has audited machine tallies, their counts have “matched 100% of the time.”
“After going through quite a few elections now, I’m really confident in the processes that are in place in Washington County and the state of Utah.”
Voters can also track their ballots online or opt-in to receive notifications as their ballots are processed.
Macy Lipkin is a Report for America corps member who reports for KUER in northern Utah.
