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A1 Communications Cable Techs Health Care Sierra Tucson Eating Disorders Program Coordinator Trades/Construction RANCHO RESORT MAINTANANCE POSITION Tucson RegionDeadline today for early-voting and absentee ballotsArizona Daily Star
Tucson, Arizona | Published: 08.22.2008
Thousands of ballots belonging to people on the permanent early-voting list have been returned to the Pima County Recorder's Office because the intended recipients left town for the summer.
And time for them to obtain replacements is running out. Today is the deadline.
While absentee ballots can be sent anywhere, ballots from the permanent early-voting list can be sent only to a Pima County address. The ballots cannot be forwarded because the county requests return service.
With 130,000 voters on the permanent early-voting list, having the ballots returned rather than forwarded is a way to keep the list up to date and eliminate voters who have moved away.
For about 2,500 voters who spend months elsewhere, that meant their ballots would never get to them in time for the election.
With no way to know the forwarding address, workers at the Recorder's Office waited for voters to call and ask about their ballots — except the voters had no way to know their ballots weren't coming.
Then, Pima County Recorder F. Ann Rodriguez sent regular letters to each of the voters whose ballots had come back.
Those letters did get forwarded, and the voters were able to call in and get the situation straightened out. Most requested absentee ballots, which will allow them to vote in the primary.
But county workers also needed to know what to do with the November general-election ballot, and there was no one-size-fits-all solution.
"We'd ask when they were coming back in town, and some of the responses were things like, 'We don't leave until the first snow,' " Rodriguez said. "We have to tell them that permanent early voting is not for them."
Contact Erica Meltzer at 807-7790 or emeltzer@azstarnet.com
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