Mail your ballots by Thursday for Arizona primary election

There is one day left to get your President Preference Election ballot in the mail.

Secretary of State Michele Reagan is asking those planning to vote by mail in Southern Arizona to send them immediately, suggesting that doing so Friday might be too late to have your vote count.

“Thursday is the best bet to ensure that your ballot gets back down here and gets counted in time,” she said.

Reagan also warned Republican voters who have-n’t already voted to keep a careful eye on who is still in the race, noting some presidential candidates are still on the ballot even though they’ve already dropped out.

“If you were a Lindsay Graham supporter, he is on the ballot,” she said. “You can vote for him if you want to, but your are throwing your vote away.”

All votes will be tabulated, Reagan said, but in the winner-take-all rules for the GOP side of the race, only votes for those still in the race will count.

Roughly 30,000 Democrats and 22,000 Republicans have registered to vote in the last three months, although Reagan says this figure includes 11,000 people who were registered as independents and who changed their political affiliation.

She expects at least a portion of those voters will re-register as independents after the Presidential Preference Election on March 22, after changing affiliations to participate in the process next week.

Back to homepage

Subscriber Login

Keep reading with a digital access subscription.

Subscribe now

Independents are not allowed to vote in next week’s election, a decision that dates back to 1992, notes Reagan.

Then-Arizona Secretary of State Betsey Bayless, a Republican, asked state Attorney General Janet Napolitano for a legal opinion on whether a new state law allowing independents to vote in the primary would extend to a presidential preference election. Napolitano, a Democrat, said no.

“And that has been on the books ever since,” she said.

Reagan has concerns about the current system — which is expected to cost an estimated $9.6 million.

“I have a very big problem that taxpayers are being asked to pay for that, but then we say ‘Oh, by the way, a third of you can’t vote in it,’” Reagan said. “You just can’t have it both ways.”

The political parties should finance the election if they continue to choose to keep independents from voting, she said, noting a number of states don’t use public funding for similar elections.

If you can’t get your ballot in the mail by Thursday, you can drop it off at any of Pima County’s designated drop-off locations. They include 240 N. Stone Ave., 6920 E. Broadway, Suite D, and 6550 S. Country Club Road.

Also, voters can drop off their vote-by-mail ballots at any polling location on Election Day.