Twin Falls residents react to mail-in voting in May primary

This year, Twin Falls County residents made their mail box their ballot box for the May primary election.

KMVT heard how some Twin Falls residents felt about changing their traditional voting process.

Twin Falls County residents had to request an absentee ballot this year, in place of going to their regular polling place due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

"Mailing it in, because of what is happening is probably a great idea but still I would rather do it in person,” said Sandy Lapray, Twin Falls resident.

Some may have expected less voters to accept this new way of voting, however, the amount of voters was 5% higher than it was two years ago.

“So we ended up with 35% voter turnout for this election. It made it real convenient for them to request a ballot, and postage was paid for them to send that ballot back to us,” Said Twin Falls County Clerk Kristina Glascock.

A little more than 13,000 ballots were turned in on time and counted.

While a little more than 3,000 ballots did not come back, or came back after the deadline and will not be counted.

"I prefer to mail it in, I’m not one to stand and wait, I don't like to wait,” said Twin Falls resident Lynette Conway.

Other voters did share with KMVT some of their concerns about how secure it is to mail in a ballot.

"The process is really detailed, what we go through before we will issue you a ballot. We have to have a signed request from that registered voter, and we compare that signed request to your voter registration card before we will even issue you a ballot.” Glascock said. “So we go through a lot steps for ballot security to prevent and make sure we don't have voter fraud.”

Looking towards the future, Glascock says all mail-in voting is unlikely.

“In Idaho we probably will always have polling places on election day, people still have the option to absentee vote or to early vote, but I don't know if Idaho will ever go to an all-mail election," Glascock explained.