What to know about mail-in voting in Idaho
BANNOCK COUNTY, Idaho (KIFI/KIDK) - With about 75 days until the November general election, county election offices are preparing for everything.
“We want to keep the process as close to normal as possible and just make voting available for everybody so it’s not a difficult process,” said Julie Hancock, the elections manager for Bannock County.
As of Thursday, Idaho plans to go ahead with in-person voting for both early voting and on Election Day. The Idaho Legislature is meeting for a special session on Monday, Aug. 24, where they'll discuss election law changes needed to make the November election safe during the pandemic.
But even with in-person voting as an option, people in Bannock County are planning ahead.
“We’ve received almost 12,000 requests for a ballot in the mail up to this point. So taking that into account, that will also reduce long lines for early voting and also on election day,” Hancock said.
How to request an absentee ballot in Idaho.
Despite President Donald Trump's insistence that mail-in voting leads to fraud, Hancock said that's not a concern in Idaho.
“I don’t know what other states do, but we do it right in Idaho. We don’t have any mail-in voter fraud at all,” Hancock said.
Bannock County Republican Party Chairperson Char Tovey agrees with Hancock.
“We have an absentee voting (system) that is absolutely fantastic. Bannock County does a great job,” Tovey said.
Tovey said she's not concerned about absentee voting in Idaho being fraudulent. It's states that send ballots to registered voters that did not request a ballot, that concerns her.
“If that voter has moved, there’s a ballot sitting in a mailbox somewhere that they don’t know who it’s going to. And I think that’s what our concern for fraud is,” Tovey said.
Hancock said the elections office will begin distributing ballots in mid-September. She's confident, even with the unusual influx in absentee ballot requests, the elections office will be able to handle the November election.
Fort Hall election officials are also preparing for in-person voting this fall. They have two voter precincts, one in Bannock County and the other in Bingham County.
The the previous election, Fort Hall provided free transit for people to get to the polls. Randy'L Teton, the public affairs manager for Fort Hall, said they plan to make sure the 2020 elections are just as accessible.
“We advocate for making sure everybody gets out to vote because it is so important for our Native American people to vote. It wasn’t less than 100 years ago that we weren’t able to vote, so it is really important,” Teton said.
