Tuesday, August 4, 2020

Primary Day

The last time I voted by mail, G'ma and I worked on her vote from home ballot.  The Democrats, the Jews, the women - those were our choices when I didn't have enough information for an informed decision.  We laughed, we commiserated, we grumbled, she signed her name and I put it in the mail.

Neither one of us gave it another thought.  

Now, with our President raising hell over the validity of vote by mail, TBG and I joined the rest of the sane world and asked for mail-in ballots.  The process was simple; a few clicks on the first website that came up when I Googled  request mail in ballot in Arizona and we were all set.

I proved it to TBG by going back to the website and looking ourselves up.  We were listed as requesting vote by mail ballots.  They arrived two days after the newspaper told me they were mailed.  

They sat on the ledge.  I did some research (the Corporation Council, the sheriff, the county attorney), found a dark pen, and marked away.  TBG finished his.  We signed them and sealed them in the inner enveloped and put them in the outer envelope and marked the appropriate boxes.  They didn't need stamps; I affixed our individual return address labels and dropped them in the mail slot inside the post office.

Five days later, I Googled check mail in ballot status in Arizona.  Two clicks and I was at my own personal page in the Secretary of State's database where, it was recorded, my ballot was Accepted.  And today, Primary Day, I didn't have to deal with other humans.  I stayed safe and I voted and I'm certain.

That's all the job of the Secretary of State, an office that's pretty important right now.

Katie Hobbs is our Secretary of State; can you tell that I like her?  Jan Brewer was our Secretary of State before she became our Governor.... that didn't turn out well in either position.  Michigan's Secretary of State is Jocelyn Benson, as she memorably told the Tweeter in Chief. Brian Kemp was Secretary of State in Georgia at the same time he was running against Stacy Abrams for Governor..... and we know what happened there.

Who is your Secretary of State?  

2 comments:

  1. So far, I have really been impressed with the technology behind the mail voting here. When we got drivers licenses, we signed up for early voting by mail. The ballot tracking is really good. I do think we're going to put our general election ballots in a drop box. This morning I read that the post office is fast tracking ballots, but they're still arriving late in some states. This situation is truly despicable.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Kim Wyman is our Secretary of State. She is a Republican in a Democrat state, Washington. We are all vote by mail, and it has worked very smoothly. You may have seem Kim Wyman on news shows. She has been contacted often for advice by other states on how to do mail in voting. It just makes so much sense. Of course we have to keep our Postal Service safe from Trump to make it work.

    ReplyDelete

Talk back to me! Word Verification is gone!