How Not to Vote in Arizona
By John R. Ammon
The 2022 midterm election is fast approaching. The system for voting in Arizona is predominantly by mail-in ballots (around 80% of all ballots). The ballots are being mailed to all voters registered for mail-in voting today, October 12th. The actual ‘day’ of the election is Tuesday November 8, 27 days from now.
Once upon a time when all voters went to the polls on the day of election, the tabulated results were announced the night of the election date. If the result of a specific race was razor thin and less than a legislated margin, a recount might prevent the naming of a winner on election night. That was the exception for calling the results of that election.
It is still this way in most first world countries but not the United States and certainly not Arizona. Voting rules (some unconstitutional) were dramatically altered in many states in 2020 because of the Covid pandemic.
We at The Prickly Pear are very concerned about the flaws in Arizona’s predominant ‘mail-in’ voting system.
The title of How Not to Vote in Arizona is purposeful and a plea to the majority of Arizonans who vote-by-mail.
As stated above, around 80% of Arizona voters do vote by mail. The system has been in place for many years but has a major flaw that has been a factor in all election cycles.
The flaw is that hundreds of thousands Arizona voters fail to ‘mail in’ their ballots well before election day.
Many ‘mail-in’ voters arrive at their local polling station on Election Day to deposit their green ‘vote-by-mail’ envelopes into the Mail-In Ballot box that day rather than surrendering their mail-in ballot and actually voting in a booth at the polling station with their vote tabulated for the results the evening of Election Day.
When a mail-in ballot is ‘dropped off’ on Election day, it must be signature certified, a labor-intensive process which may take days to weeks given the 200,000 or more mail-in ballots submitted by Arizona voters this way. These ‘dropped off’ ballots must be collected, transported, sorted, and signature certified, raising serious questions of chain-of-custody and the potential for illegal voting. This is HOW NOT TO VOTE in Arizona.
VOTERS OF ARIZONA – the solution to this serious and troublesome pattern for so many ‘drop off’ voters is to actually complete the ‘mail-in’ ballot shortly after receipt. Complete your ballot, sign the envelope and take it to the post office within days of receipt, certainly no later than November 1st, a full week before Election Day.
Never deposit a ballot in an unsupervised ‘Drop Box’.
As a responsible voter, you should follow your ballot to ensure it has been received, signature certified to be certain it is actually tabulated and counted by Election Day on November 8th. The way voters can check their voter registration and then how to track their ballot after mailing it are at the following links for Maricopa County voters:
Check Your (Ballot) Status at the Maricopa County Voter Dashboard: Are You Ballot Ready? https://recorder.maricopa.gov/Elections/BeBallotReady/
How to Track Your Early Ballot from Start to Finish in Maricopa County: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fTLeLvCxFj4&t=37s
Your County Recorder website will have comparable links for Arizonans residing in all other counties.
TAKE ACTION
How Not to Vote in Arizona
The 2022 midterm election is fast approaching. The system for voting in Arizona is predominantly by mail-in ballots (around 80% of all ballots). The ballots will be mailed out to all voters registered for mail-in voting on October 12th. The actual ‘day’ of the election is Tuesday November 8, 27 days later.
Once upon a time when all voters went to the polls on the day of election, the tabulated results were announced the night of the election date. If the result of a specific race was razor thin and less than a legislated margin, a recount might prevent the naming of a winner. That was the exception for calling the results of the election.
It is still this way in most first world countries but not the United States and certainly not Arizona. Voting rules (some unconstitutional) were dramatically altered in many states in 2020 because of the Covid pandemic.
We at The Prickly Pear are very concerned about the flaws in Arizona’s predominant ‘mail-in’ voting system.
Please click on the red TAKE ACTION link below to learn How Not to Vote in Arizona as a mail-in ballot voter and to be certain your vote is included in the count the evening of November 8th.
This article is courtesy of ThePricklyPear.org, an online voice for citizen journalists to express the principles of limited government and personal liberty to the public, to policy makers, and to political activists. Please visit ThePricklyPear.org for more great content.
