Election officials in Arizona’s most populated counties said returns of early ballots have been lower than expected.
About half of Arizona’s 1.2 million registered Republicans requested early ballots for today’s GOP presidential primary election.
Maricopa County mailed 379,000 early ballots and had received 225,000 of them, about 60 percent, by Monday.
Pima County had received about 48,000 of the 85,000 early ballots it sent out, a 56 percent return rate thus far.
Recorder Helen Purcell said Maricopa County usually sees an 80 percent return rate for early ballots, adding that the lack of Democratic primary could be reducing interest.
It was much the same story in several other counties contacted by Cronkite News Service, though Yavapai County had received 66 percent of its 32,000 early ballots by Monday and Recorder Leslie M. Hoffman predicted a strong turnout.
People are also reading…
“We have a lot of interested and very passionate citizens,” she said. “We have a lot of older people in our county, and older people seem to be pretty politically passionate.”
Bruce Merrill, a political scientist and pollster with Arizona State University’s Morrison Institute for Public Policy, said he expects about 10 percent of the primary vote to be cast at polling places.
In 2008, with U.S. Sen. John McCain of Arizona on the ballot, Republicans posted a 51 percent turnout.
