Election officials fear voting changes will confuse voters in November

Officials in Idaho have sought out new ways to reach voters, said Chad Houck, chief deputy secretary of state. 

The office, as well as various Idaho counties, have been working on expanding their social media presence, particularly on Facebook, to reach audiences that may not be as aware of changes. 

“They found a larger audience there and a growing audience there, which will now give them a better voice as we move into making changes or as things evolve going forward,” Houck said, adding that his office is looking at Election Day communications tools that we will probably try to test in November.” 

In an effort to make the voting process easier, Michigan election officials are piloting a ballot-tracking service that allows voters to keep tabs on their individual ballots, according to Jake Rollow, director of communications and external affairs at the secretary of state’s office. 

“It looks like many of the mail tracking services provided by companies that ship orders to individuals,” Rollow said. “Through the use of smart bar codes on the envelopes, the voter can see ballot’s status as it goes from the clerk to them and then back to the clerk.”

The state will employ this tracking program during its August primary, “with the expectation of expanding statewide for November,” Rollow added. 

For its presidential primary, Indiana spent a portion of allocated CARES Act funds on a voter outreach campaign “that informed voters of changes to the election and advised them to request an absentee ballot,” said Ian Hauer, acting communications director at the secretary of state’s office. 

“If changes are made to the general election, we will likely use a similar outreach campaign (in additional to our usual outreach campaign),” Hauer added. 

In March, Congress allocated $400 million to the Election Assistance Commission to provide states with grants “to prevent, prepare for, and respond to coronavirus, domestically or internationally, for the 2020 Federal election cycle.” But state and local officials have been urging Congress to appropriate more money, arguing funds are rapidly depleting.

“It’s looking like I spent close to 60% of my CARES Act funding on the primary election,” Jared Dearing, executive director of the Kentucky State Board of Elections, said Wednesday. “To put that in context, we are expecting turnout to go from 30%, which was a record high for a primary election, to as much as 70%.”

Article source: https://www.cnbc.com/2020/07/11/election-officials-fear-changes-could-confuse-voters-in-november.html