Delivery of 267,000 mail-in ballots in Pima County delayed

Some 267,000 voters in Pima County did not receive their mail-in ballots over the weekend due to an addressing problem that caused a delivery delay, a county official says. 

All those ballots should reach voters by the end of the week, Pima County Recorder Gabriella Cázares-Kelly said Monday.

Those affected are some Pima County voters on the early voting list and some who made one-time early ballot requests before Oct. 8, for whom ballot delivery is "slightly delayed," county officials announced Sunday night.

Early ballots started arriving in mailboxes across the county over the weekend.

The delay is linked to an issue in addressing discovered and reported when assembly of ballots began, the Recorder's Office said.

Cázares-Kelly said Monday that approximately 200,000 ballots sent to the post office last week should have already reached Pima County voters' homes.

The roughly 89,000 delivered each day to the post office on Saturday, Sunday and Monday — about 267,000 in total — are the ones experiencing delays, she said. 

Even though delayed, ballots delivered by Friday will still be within the usual timeframe, but if any ballots aren't in voters' hands by the end of the week that will be "out of the norm," she said.

If a voter doesn't have their ballot by the end of the week, they should call the Recorder's Office at 520-724-4330, Cázares-Kelly said.

Or, if they don't feel like waiting any longer, there are currently three early voting sites operating and another one is set to open in Oro Valley next week, she said. Eventually Pima County will have a total of 19 locations "where voters can go to return their ballots or cast early ballots."

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"And we will also have drive-through ballot drop-offs (at four locations) so that people can simply drive up, hand over their ballots and have it secured by an election worker," she said.

The addressing error was explained this way in a county news release: At the beginning of the month the Recorder's Office had to mail new voter registration cards to 505 voters in the Continental School District "and to four voters in one other school district after the County discovered a mapping error had placed them in the wrong school district."  

The county halted the entire mailing process for about a day to ensure ballots were sent out correctly, said Mark Evans, a spokesman for the county.

The county's elections department worked with the Phoenix-based company that prints Pima County’s ballots, Runbeck, to ensure all voters can vote in the races for which they are eligible, the Recorder's Office said.  

"To guarantee 100% accuracy, printing was halted by Pima County which caused an unforeseen delay in the ballot packet assembly," the release said. "We appreciate Runbeck’s commitment to getting our ballots to voters as soon as possible and the USPS for their quick work to process election mail upon receipt."

The last batch of ballots, about 89,000, were on their way from Phoenix to Tucson on Monday and were expected to be at the post office by that afternoon, Cázares-Kelly said. Because Monday was a federal holiday, the majority of delayed ballots will begin to show up to Pima County mailboxes after Tuesday, and throughout the week in more rural areas, she said.

To find out about voting centers, ballot drop-off locations and hours of operation, visit www.pima.vote.

The deadline to request a mail or early ballot is Oct. 25.

Election Day is Nov. 5.