E-news was happily aestivating in its cave until it got poked by Jeri Meeks. Awakened, it emerged from its cave long enough to produce the following short E-news then wandered back to its cave and fell back asleep.

ASURA Office

The ASURA Office remains closed BUT thanks to the diligence of office managers Linda Van Scoy and Nancy Lesko, phone message are being listened and attended to and US Postal mail is being picked up and processed accordingly. The process is not as responsive as in the past but it is getting done, if more slowly.

Changes in AZ Voting – Voting in Person

Pat Schneider and Jeri Meeks attended a virtual meeting regarding changes to voting in Arizona. The meeting was presented by The Arizona Capital Times and had speakers from Citizens Elections Commission, Maricopa County Election Day and Emergency Voting and the Coconino County Recorder’s office. Jeri will prepare a full report for the fall issue of Prime Times and has prepared the following short version for E-news.

In the 2016 general election 2.7 million Arizona voters turned out – with 80% voting by mail. But if you like to vote in person, there are a few changes for the August and November 2020 elections. Arizonians will use Voting Centers instead of Precincts and adhere to COVID-19 safety measures.

Maricopa County is moving to a Voting Center model – replacing the precincts. Voting Centers will process ballots from any Maricopa County resident - voters will not be limited to using a specific precinct location. There will be 100 Voting Centers open August 4th for the Primary and more in November, as needed.  Several Voting centers will be open 27 days before the voting deadline, with evening and weekend hours available. The Voting Centers will have in-person inside voting, drive-up voting for those with disabilities, and outside drop boxes for mail in ballots.

Maricopa County will not require voters to have and/or wear a mask, but will provide voters with masks, gloves, and one-time use pens. Coconino County will require masks, along with all other coronavirus safeguards.  All poll workers will have face shields and gloves. Social distancing will be encouraged.

Voters can access a list of Voting Center locations with hours and wait times at https://recorder.maricopa.gov/pollingplace/ (or search for Locations.Maricopa.Vote).

Election Dates and Registration Deadlines:

• Primary Election – August 4, 2020 (registration deadline July 6, 2020)
• General election – November 3, 2020 (registration deadline October 5, 2020)

Meet The Candidates

Sponsored by the Citizens Clean Elections Commission and Arizona Capitol Times, this year's Meet the Candidates event will be streamed live on YouTube at 6 p.m. each night from July 13 to July 17. You will have the opportunity to hear from the candidates and interact with them by sending in questions. Don't forget to register – the event is free to attend!

• July 14: RSVP HERE for Legislative Districts 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12
• July 15: RSVP HERE Legislative Districts 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19
• July 16: RSVP HERE Legislative Districts 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25
• July 17: RSVP HERE Legislative Districts 26, 27, 28, 29, 30

Note 1:  If you do not remember your Legislative District use the District Locator

Note 2:  The RSVP process involves “buying” a ticket to the event, which costs nothing since the event is free. After “buying” your ticket you will get a confirmation email and later in the week an email with a link to the meeting. Be sure to check your spam mail for the emails with the confirmation and event link.

Membership Renewal

To continue getting informative reports like the one above about changes in AZ Voting from ASURA’s Government Liaisons you will want to make sure to renew your membership. 

If you have renewed your membership but have not yet heard back from ASURA thanking you for your continued support, it’s coming. As noted above the ASURA Office is operating but at a much slower speed. Also getting information about on-line donations/payments from the ASU Foundation has been slowed down by the way their new gifting application communicates with us.