Idaho to alert voters of absentee election

Idaho voters who haven’t already requested absentee ballots for the May 19 primary election can expect to receive request forms in the mail in the next 10 to 14 days.

The Idaho Secretary of State’s Office will start mailing the forms to more than 500,000 registered voters next week.

Chief Deputy Secretary of State Chad Houck said voters simply need to select which ballot they want and mail the form back in the postage-paid envelope.

Ballots for the Republican primary will only be available to voters who are affiliated with the Idaho Republican Party. Democratic and nonpartisan ballots, by contrast, are available to any registered voter.

The Secretary of State’s Office, together with local county election offices, is making a concerted effort to raise voter awareness of the May 19 primary.

Given the concerns about the coronavirus, the election will be conducted entirely by absentee ballot. The move is intended to promote public safety by avoiding large crowds at polling places.

As of Thursday, Houck said, Idaho voters had requested roughly 120,000 absentee ballots. That includes about 81,000 ballots that were requested online — up from about 59,000 at the start of the week — plus another 40,000 or so requests that have come in via mail or in person.

That remains well short of the 200,000 or so ballots needed just to tie the lowest primary turnout in the past 40 years. Nevertheless, Houck is confident the numbers will pick up, given how many requests have already come in with a month to go before the election.

“I think we’ll be pleasantly surprised at how well the turnout is,” he said.

The Secretary of State’s Office announced several additional steps Thursday to help with that effort.

First, the office is partnering with Idaho grocery stores to provide postage for mailing in the ballots. It’s also partnering with small businesses around the state to raise awareness about the election, and is encouraging county election offices to reach out to local advocacy groups to ensure that disabled voters have access to the election.

Houck noted that the absentee ballot request forms that are being mailed out next week already have postage-paid return envelops. The ballots that will be sent to voters should have postage-paid envelops as well.

However, some ballots that were previously mailed to voters didn’t have pre-paid envelops, he said. The partnership with Idaho grocers — including all Idaho Safeway and Albertsons stores, as well as dozens of independent grocers — will address those ballots.

“All you have to do is bring in the completed, sealed and signed (ballot) envelop to the store’s customer service center and they’ll provide a stamp for the envelop,” Houck said.

A list of the grocery stores participating in the program can be found online at idahovotes.gov/vote-early-idaho.

The site also has links to the Business Owners’ Absentee Voter Awareness Program (BOAVAP) — which involves small businesses uploading videos encouraging voter participation — as well as information about voter accessibility and a link to request an absentee ballot, for those who want don’t want to use the mail-in form.

The deadline for requesting absentee ballots for the primary election is May 19 at 8 p.m. The ballots must be returned by 8 p.m. June 2, at which time the votes will be tabulated.

William L. Spence may be contacted at bspence@lmtribune.com or (208) 791-9168.