Iron County Clerk Explains Ballot Distribution Process

We shared this interesting article today about how to get through the election and keep your sanity. I think I have been somewhat consistent in saying that we do have a responsibility to participate in the election process. But I must tell you, I do tire of being constantly bombarded that my only role in life is to vote, and with no lack of opinion on being the way I should vote.

From the somewhat subtle “are you registered to vote” pop ups on seemingly every social media platform to the not so subtle “vote for this guy” screaming from the talking heads of legacy media, it gets a little annoying.

But, as I said, I do think it is vital for us to participate in our elections. That's why I was happy to have the Iron County Clerk, Jon Whittaker on the radio with us this morning to explain the process his office goes through to get ballots to us, and what we should do when we receive those ballots.

Without question, our method of voting has changed and Jon told us, that has changed the dynamics of his job. “I remember thinking back to some of my early trainings, we would go and they would say, hey, make sure you reconcile at the end of the night, make sure you, you know, keep your voter rolls up. And now it's like, well, this is conflict de escalation and this is how you manage stress. And this is what happens if there's, you know, an active shooter. I've had four briefings with the FBI this month,” Whittaker told us.

That aside, our county clerk outlined what we can expect as far as ballots being delivered to our residences, and what we should do once we get them.

“In Utah, we are allowed to mail ballots 21 days before the election and so they can go into the mail on that 21st day. And so it depends on the Postal Service after that. This year, that would be October 15th, so I'd say 17th, 18th, 18th, 19th. You'll you'll start to see some some ballots in the mailboxes and they should all be delivered by about the 20^th,” Whittaker said.

As to our role after that, Whittaker again reminded that ballots must have a postmark of no later than the day before the election. To avoid the problem that arose during the recent primary election with ballots going to Las Vegas first before delivery to Parowan, Jon had a couple of suggestions. The first was to put your ballot in the mail at least five day prior to the deadline. The other was if you were past that time was to go in to the post office and get a hand stamp by the local post office staff. Whittaker indicated that county clerks do have discretion to use those local postmarks as opposed to the ones applied in Las Vegas.

But if you really want to be sure to get your votes in, Whittaker, along with us endorse taking your ballot in person to a ballot drop off location, and according to Jon, we will have more drop off locations available this election. “We were able to get some funding and we are installing outdoor 24 hour ballot boxes in Cedar City, Enoch Parowan, Brian Head, Kanarraville and also at Beryl Junction. And of course there will still be an inside box at Paragonah Town.”

You can hear our entire exchange with Jon below, and we will be having him back on the radio for another visit to go over this information again.

I sometimes miss going to the polling place on election day. There was a kind of social aspect to it sometimes running into neighbors and friends and you could visit while you were waiting. But there is one thing I like about early voting. Once I cast my ballot I can follow the advice of the writer of the article I shared at the beginning, and just tune it out.