A policy related to early voting has been formalized by the Pulaski County Election Board. “The state has changed some laws, and they required us to provide them with our policy of how to assign a specific ID number to the early voting, the in-person absentee voting ballots,” explains election board member Laura Bailey.
Bailey says the election board officially approved that policy last week, and also agreed to submit it to the state as part of Pulaski County’s vote center plan. She explains the whole point of voter ID numbers is to allow votes to be retracted, as required by state law, if someone votes early but dies before the actual election.
But Bailey adds the ID numbers have other benefits, as well. “Basically, instead of copying out the old paper application for an early voting ballot, if we provide the specific ID number for that voter, then we don’t have to do that extra step, which required the voters to sign and have this paper hooked to the receipt for their vote and all this kind of crazy stuff.”
Other than that, Bailey says Pulaski County Clerk Christi Hoffa has been busy getting ready for the May primary, “Making sure the required advertisements are being run, poll workers are in line, the dates for the public test, the poll worker training, all those things are taken care of, and she completed the acceptance test for the electronic poll books required by the state.”
Bailey says Pulaski County appears to be on track for a pretty smooth primary election.
