TUCSON, Ariz. - There’s an important election coming up before the one in November. Next month’s primary could decide a lot of races where there’s no party vs party opposition in the general election. KGUN9 On Your Side has advice from the Pima County Recorder on how to make sure your primary vote counts.
Time’s running out if you want to choose your party’s candidate for a wide range of races in the November election. That election is months away but the primary is August 4th. And if you want to vote in that one you only have until Monday to register to vote.
Pima County Record F. Ann Rodriguez says her office has made it easy to register by the Monday deadline with easy options: on-line through Service Arizona, or the Recorder's website---or in person.
She says, “On Monday, at the downtown Recorder's office and the east side office at Broadway and Kolb we're going to be open till 7pm so people want to drop them off and come in, or we'll have our phone lines also open to help citizens out there.”
Monday is the deadline to register for the primary. Registration for the General Election ends in early October.
To help encourage voting and maintain virus protection, Governor Doug Ducey and Secretary of State Katie Hobbs have put nine million dollars towards more vote by mail efforts, more secure ballot drop off sites, more poll workers and more anti virus protection like gloves, masks, and hand sanitizer.
Rodriguez says PIma County’s share will be about 660 thousand dollars.
If you asked for a mail primary ballot, they will start going out the middle of next week. The envelope is bright green to make it easier to spot.
There’s a place to sign where you swear that’s really your vote and a blank for a phone number to help verify a signature that does not seem to match what’s on file.
Rodriguez says, “We're not putting the phone number in our database. You won’t be getting texts from a candidate or political groups. It's just so we can contact you if we have a problem with it.”
Rodriguez says her website lets you track your ballotso you can have confidence it was counted.
