26 December 2007 - 15:37AZ Independents can NOT vote in primary!
I wanted to share what I learned today as I requested my early ballot in Arizona for the presidential primaries. Some things you should know if you are registered in Arizona:
- Both the Democratic and Republican presidential primaries will be held on February 5th.
- Contrary to popular belief, if you are registered Independent (’NO PARTY’ on your reg card) you will NOT be able to vote or request an early ballot. You MUST be registered for the party who’s primary you intend to vote in. AZCentral has some coverage on this.
The gist is: while Arizona independents DO get to vote in state primaries, the law that enables this does not apply to ‘presidential preference’ votes. An irritating catch, especially if you’re like me and haven’t decided which primary you’ll be voting in yet.
- Moreover, if you want to change your registration (even just temporarily) to vote in one or the other primary, you must do so before midnight on January 7th (two weeks away!). It takes about 2 minutes to register online and you can change it back after the primary.
- To request an early ballot, you must do so from the county within which you are registered. You can request that ballot to be mailed anywhere (I’ll be filling out my AZ ballot in Oregon).
Early Ballot Request for Pima County, AZ
Early Ballot Request for Maricopa County, AZ
Please vote! Or not, and make my vote count more. I’ll be ok with that. ;o)