Season during the elections year
during an election year otherwise
known as campaign season,
is less than six weeks.
Idahoans are going to hit the polls
for the May primary election and
those who have requested an absentee
ballot start getting those sent to
them in the mail this past week.
And if you receive yours,
maybe you have some questions
about it about the ballot itself,
your district,
or even your party affiliation
over the next few weeks we hope
to answer as many questions
as we can about the election,
starting with a few today,
one on voting districts and another on
voter affiliation with a political party.
Here's Joe Paris.
In 40
days, Idahoans will head to the polls to
vote in the 2022 May primary election
already some voters are sending in
their votes on absentee ballots,
which leads us to a big question from John.
In Boise, John writes to us while
filling out my early absentee ballot.
At the end of the first page,
I noticed candidates for District 22 listed.
Since I'm in District 21,
wouldn't that be illegal?
Great question.
We went to Ada County clerk Phil
Mcgrane for insight on the possible mix
up. Odds are they got.
Correct ballot, it's just that
this is a year of redistricting
important to remember Idaho just installed
new voting districts as a part of the
census process that we do every decade.
New districts were just put in
place in the middle of March in
terms of the data being updated.
So this is all very new and it was
a race for all the county clerk's
offices to get that information
completed so we could mail out
those very first absentee ballots
to help verify the situation.
We search John's address in the helpful find.
My ballot search tool on the ADA.
County elections website.
There we confirmed Mcgrane's hunch
about redistricting is correct,
but Mcgrane says this is a great reminder.
It never hurts to make sure all
of your information is up to date.
One of the best things you can
do is just feel free to check so
Ada County elections.com you can
actually look up your address,
find out what district you're in,
and see a sample ballot
that you'll be voting on.
So even before you head to the polls,
or if you want to check to make
sure the ballot that you see
online is the one that you got
in the mail just to verify that.
You can easily independently
do that through our website.
Another issue of voter ran into this week,
seeing the wrong party affiliation
listed in the state system.
Deborah let us know that she
wanted to affiliate with the
Republicans after being unaffiliated,
but she saw on her record online that
she was listed as a Democrat affiliate.
So what do you do in this situation?
Mcgrane says, reaching out to the
clerk's office is a great step.
We can easily look in the records
we keep track of everything.
And yes, errors can occur and so if
it was a clerical error on our side.
We can fix it. We can even fix
it while voter is present at
the polls and get that adjusted
Deborah on the clerk's office came
to the conclusion that it simply was
a mistake that has since been fixed.
There are receipts, so to speak,
on all transactions someone
has with the clerk's office.
So if a mistake is made it is
easy to double check the receipt.
It's just as easy also to refute
claims made by voters who
may have missed a deadline.
If someone swears by it,
we'll be able to go back through
the records and we can fix it.
If we can find the record but just somebody.
Asserting that you know I've been
a lifelong XYZ isn't sufficient.
We actually do have to have the
paper trail and for everything,
whether it's voter registrations,
party changes, election history,
we keep track of all those records
reflecting people's participation.
Well, kudos to them for getting
these absentee ballots turned
around in a short amount of time.
Having to change with all the
redistricting and everything.
So that is great.
But now we want to talk about the
voter affiliation and that deadline,
we know have passed on March
11th for anybody that wants to,
say, vote in the GOP primary.
But it was registered as
a Democrat or whatever,
but unaffiliated.
How does that play
out? Let's clarify this here once
and for all, because if you are
currently an unaffiliated voter,
meaning you've never been with
the Republicans or Democrats or
you decided to unaffiliated,
then you are able to change your affiliation.
At the polls, again,
this is only for unaffiliated voters.
If you're already a Democrat or a
Republican affiliation, it is too late.
The March 11th deadline has passed.
Now Brian, you and I were talking
in The Newsroom this afternoon
with our producer Danny,
and we're talking about the
legislation that could have
been passed in the State House.
That would have made some big changes.
I'm not going to bring them up because
it'll make the whole thing confusing.
But what you need to know if
you're an unaffiliated voter,
you can change your affiliation up
to and on Election Day in Idaho.
If you're already registered,
you're out of luck.
If you'd like to vote in the
Democratic primary, you could be
registered as a Republican, but.
You get the democratic.
Primary ballot right,
but if you want to vote
in the Republican primary,
you have to be registered as a Republican,
correct? You can only get one.
So if for some reason you
wanted to vote in multiple,
too bad you got to pick one
based on your affiliation.
Totally understand.
Thanks Joe. You got it.