Why Aren't Clinton Or Trump On The Ballot? More Voter Education Needed According To Voting Rights Group

Published: Friday, September 2, 2016 - 6:10pm
Mariana Dale/KJZZ
A 2016 Maricopa County primary election ballot.

Secretary of State spokesman Matt Roberts described Tuesday’s Primary Election as quiet, a sharp contrast to the March 22 Presidential Preference election which saw voters waiting in line for hours. But one voter rights group had concerns.

Samantha Pstross is the executive director of the Arizona Advocacy Network. She says more needs to be done at the state and county levels when it comes to voter education.

"We definitely had several incidents of voters showing up to vote and those voters being frustrated that they couldn’t vote for president," she said. "They didn’t realize it was a primary election and that it was not the presidential election."

Pstross went on to detail other events that cause concern among her organization.

"We ran across some poll workers who weren’t properly trained," she explained. "They didn’t realize that voters could vote a real ballot if they had been sent an early ballot and for whatever reason weren’t able to turn that early ballot in. and that’s really important because a lot of times voters are given provisional ballots and those provisional ballots don’t always count."

Pstross wants to see more voter education ahead of the General Election. She calls voting quote, “the soul of our democracy.”

Politics