Editorial:

In the uncertainty of 2020, make sure your vote counts

Posted 6/30/20

While you could use many words to describe 2020, uncertainty is a one of the prevailing themes. With the primary election less than two months away, uncertainty looms.

Will Park County’s …

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Editorial:

In the uncertainty of 2020, make sure your vote counts

Posted

While you could use many words to describe 2020, uncertainty is a one of the prevailing themes. With the primary election less than two months away, uncertainty looms.

Will Park County’s cases of COVID-19 continue to rise or begin to decline? Will health orders tighten or loosen in the coming weeks? How will the pandemic impact voter turnout?

And as Park County Clerk Colleen Renner recently asked voters to consider, what if you wake up with a fever or other symptoms on Election Day, and cannot make it to the polls?

Amid the uncertainty of 2020, we can take a simple step to ensure our votes are counted: Request an absentee ballot.

Voting absentee ensures you can cast your ballot, even if you can’t make it to a polling place.

It’s easy to request an absentee ballot through the Park County Elections Office — for more information, call 307-754-8620 or email voterinfo@parkcounty.us. You also can visit www.parkcountyelections.net or https://sos.wyo.gov/Elections/ for more information.

Renner has been encouraging residents to vote absentee this year, and the good news is that many voters are doing so. More than 3,600 voters had already asked for an absentee ballot as of last week — more than double the number of absentee requests in August 2016.

To be clear, there is nothing stopping you from voting at the polls on Election Day. If it’s important to you to show up at the polls and fill out your ballot on Aug. 18, that’s your prerogative. However, we hope you’ll stop to consider how different things are this year.

For starters, due to difficulties with maintaining social distancing and other factors, traditional polling places in the Heart Mountain, Clark, Garland, Wapiti and South Fork areas are being eliminated this year; in addition, there are concerns about a shortage of election judges, many of whom are over the age of 65.

“If county clerks were to maintain their current number and locations of polling places, county clerks would have enormous difficulty in obtaining the required number of election judges and maintaining proper social distancing procedures,” Wyoming Secretary of State Ed Buchanan  wrote in a directive last month. “This could put the health and safety of our traditional poll workers at significant risk.”

As Americans, we treasure the right to vote, but we also value the health of voters as well as election workers. That’s why voting should look different in 2020.

“We’re really hoping people will think of everyone and just request an absentee ballot — vote in the privacy of their own home with a cup of coffee, if that’s what they want,” Renner said last month.

Even though the experience may seem vastly different, absentee voting has been relied upon by many Wyomingites for decades and the identical ballots count exactly the same — as long as it’s returned by 7 p.m. on Election Day (Tuesday, Aug. 18).

If you haven’t requested an absentee ballot, there’s still plenty of time. You can request one up through Monday, Aug. 17, but we recommend doing it sooner so the elections office isn’t flooded with last-minute requests and so you’re not scrambling.

The county will begin sending out absentee ballots this week, giving voters plenty of time to consider their choices before dropping the ballot in the mail or taking it to the Park County Courthouse.

Though so much seems uncertain in 2020, take simple steps now to ensure your vote will count in this year’s election.

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