Absentee voting begins this week

By: 
Nathan Oster

Absentee voting has begun for the August 20 primary election.

Big Horn County Clerk Lori Smallwood said her office had received 210 absentee ballot requests as of Monday and that they would be going out in the mail Tuesday.

Any qualified Big Horn County voter who wishes to vote by absentee ballot may apply to the Big Horn County Clerk for an absentee ballot either in person, by email, by telephone or by mail.

An ID is required to vote absentee, in person or to pick up a ballot.

The 713 absentee ballots that were cast in the 2022 primary election represented just shy of 17% of the 4,279 total votes cast in Big Horn County.

The percentage was even higher back in 2020, when in the COVID-19 pandemic, 35% of the votes cast in the primary were absentee ballots. 

As of July 1, 2024, Big Horn County had 4,856 registered voters, with 4,377, or 90%, being listed as Republicans, 225, or 4.5% being Democrats and 222, or 4.5%, being unaffiliated.  

The Secretary of State’s website also showed 22 Libertarian party members and 10 Constitution Party members in the county’s voter rolls.

The biggest change this year was the elimination of crossover voting. If you are a registered voter who is not affiliated with a major party, it’s too late to declare one — the deadline to do so was May 15 — and you will not be able to vote in the Republican or Democratic primaries.

If you did not vote in the 2022 general election, you may register in advance with any municipal clerk or the county clerk, or at the polls on election day.

Voters living outside a town who are not affiliated with a major party will not have a ballot for the primary election.

Smallwood said Monday that her office was “ready to roll,” adding that the training of election judges would start this week with the public testing of the voting machines to follow next week.

General election filing

The filing period for seats on the boards of special districts, such as school, hospital, rural health and cemetery, among others, opens August 7 and closes August 26.

 

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