Washington County shifting to vote-by-mail system for elections

Washington County shifting to vote-by-mail system for elections

(KSL, File)


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ST. GEORGE — Starting with the November election, voters in Washington County will need to drop their ballots in their mailbox.

The switch to voting by mail, which was unanimously approved Tuesday at the Washington County Commission meeting in St. George, comes as the county updates its voting equipment to a new system, Washington County Clerk Kim Hafen said. However, for people who have problems mailing their ballot or who want to do it in person, there will still be as many as 10 physical polling locations in the county.

“It’ll be a change for us, but it’s nothing that we’re scared about or nervous about,” Hafen said. “It’s a bit odd that we’re changing between the primary and the general election, but we’re not worried about it.”

Changing to a vote-by-mail system will save the county money and reduce the need to find poll workers on Election Day, Hafen said.

“For us to replace the old equipment that we have piece by piece, we’d have to put a lot of things on hold in order make those purchases. We have 350 touch screens that we can’t afford to replace, so the vote-by-mail equipment will be cheaper to work with.”

With ballots being sent in by mail, it will allow votes to be counted faster and results to be released sooner because more people will likely send in their ballots sooner, Hafen said.

There were about 11,000 mail-in ballots that needed to be counted by poll workers for this year’s Republican primary election, Hafen said. Previously, every signature on the mail-in ballots needed to be checked and verified by poll workers, which was a “slow, methodical process,” Hafen said. The new voting equipment will be able to automatically check most of the signatures.

To receive a ballot in the mail, Washington County residents must be registered, which can be done online.

To read the full story, visit St. George News.

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