ELLY GRIMM
• Leader & Times
The 2024 election has many offices on the ballot for voters to decide on, both nationally and locally, and local employees are looking to help spread the necessary information about this year’s election season.
“There are a lot of deadlines for all of the elections as far as the requirements of printing publications in the local newspaper and things like that – and I will say, any publication we're legally required to do, we also share on our Web site and on our Facebook page so that information can be shared to everyone,” Seward County Clerk Stacia Long said. “All of that work starts very early because there's a Notice of Voter Registration deadline we've had to print, as well as a Notice of Primary, which lists all the candidates who will be on the ballot and their parties, and all of that. For this election, we started very early, and we always do because we have overseas voters and have to be ready to go a certain period of time before the election, so we move things along very quickly as far as having the ballots programmed and ready to go. We mailed out overseas ballots June 22, and everything else just moves from there. We share a lot of information on our Web site and through our Facebook page, and we also do some Public Service Announcements to share as much as possible. Our focus right now is on the primary, so once that's all done, we'll get started on the general election stuff for November. There's definitely a lot of behind-the-scenes work the community doesn't see.”
But even though the work has been steadily going on, Long said she and her staff are nowhere near close to being finished for this election season.
“The primary, which started July 22 with early voting, has gone very smoothly so far, which my staff and I are really happy about. I was hoping to maybe see a bigger turnout simply because there are more races on the ballot than typical, but we haven't really seen an increase so far,” Long said. “I don't think a lot of people realize a lot of our local races are determined in the primary. I don't know what the answer is, but I would love to see more people get out and exercise their right to vote in the primary elections. What's been different about this year compared to other years was the presidential preference primary, which hadn't been done in more than 30 years in this state, so we've been working on elections since literally the beginning of the year. With the primary election, that doesn't include the presidential ballot since that was determined with the preference primary, and with this time around, we're seeing about the same numbers as in the past. After this election, we'll immediately start working on the general election stuff for November, and we'll be really busy with that. I do expect to get a lot of requests for mail-in ballots. We also have a lot of people in the community campaigning, so that's something else that helps get the word out.”
With 2024 seeing so many offices up for grabs, Long said she and her staff know the importance of getting the word about regarding the election.
“Something I want to emphasize is, we can get this information out to the people, but people also need to take initiative for themselves and do some of their own research,” Long said. “We don't have the budget to mail personal invitations to every voter, though I wish we did, because that's a great way to get information out. However, we use every media source we can to get the word out about what's going on, and that's really important because we have voter registration deadlines, so if someone misses that, they won't be eligible to vote in that election. That deadline is always 21 days before the election. And a lot of young people don't know, if you're 17, you can get registered to vote if you'll be turning 18 before the election, but they have to register before the deadline and mark on their application how they'll be 18 before the election so they can be eligible. It's easier now more than ever to get the information you want beforehand. We have the VoterView Web site, which is becoming more and more popular, and I mention it to everyone I possibly can, because it's a wonderful tool to use to be able to go online and look at a sample ballot before they go and vote. They can look at it and mark it up and do all the research they want and also use it as a guide when they go to the polls. It used to be you had to contact the election office to get the information you wanted or a sample ballot, but nowadays, people can go online and see exactly what their ballot will look like, or they can get in touch with us and ask what they want.”
Among all of that, Long offered encouragement for citizens to make their way to the polls for the primary and general elections.
“Nationwide, we always encourage people to exercise their right to vote, it's very important to do so. There are also so many different ways for people to vote now – people can vote early, they can vote by mail or by absentee ballot, or they can vote on Election Day. In my mind, there's not really any excuse for people to not vote, because there's literally every opportunity to do so,” Long said. “Right now, we're seeing about the same numbers as far as voter registration goes, I haven't really seen any increase in that regard. We do typically see a massive increase in registration after the primaries, and I recommend if you're not registered for the general election, get registered as quickly as possible so you'll be ready to go come Election Day. The main thing is for citizens to be knowledgeable about what's going on, and if there's something they don't quite understand, reach out to us and get to the information you need, we'll be happy to help.”