Arizona: Arizona: ‘Misplaced’ ballots raising concern over all-mail vote – Arizona Daily Star

The U.S. Postal Service “misplaced” about 85 mail-in ballots for an upcoming all-mail election in Sahuarita, Pima County Recorder F. Ann Rodriguez said Friday. While replacing the ballots was relatively easy for a smaller-city election, the incident is raising questions about the Tucson City Council’s recent decision to switch to all-mail voting. This is the first time the Recorder’s Office has heard of the Postal Service losing ballots, said Rodriguez.

The disappearance of what “appears to be a single mail tray” of ballots was discovered when voters, all in the same section of the Quail Creek neighborhood, started reporting they hadn’t received theirs a week after they were mailed out.Just over 12,000 ballots were mailed to Sahuarita voters on April 21. So far, 85 voters have requested replacements.Rodriguez said the problem appears to be limited to “a single tray” of ballots intended for that neighborhood. With 1.6 million mail-in ballots sent in Pima County over the last decade, “this is a very rare occurrence,” she said.

Postal workers “haven’t found any evidence that any mail was misplaced,” said Robert Soler, a spokesperson with the U.S. Postal Service in Tucson. Still, both Soler and Rodriguez urged voters to call the Recorder’s Office if they hadn’t received a ballot and they would be mailed before the election on May 17.

“The voters have been issued second ballots and we have taken care of them,” Rodriguez said, who added that measures are in place to make sure there would be only one vote per person.