Yuma voter IDs accidentally doubled

Human error is behind the accidental duplication of hundreds of voter identification cards recently sent out to area voters.

Voter ID cards were printed and mailed in duplicate in two precincts in Yuma County during a complete reissue of cards, which were printed to reflect the once-a-decade redistricting.

County Recorder Robyn Stallworth Pouquette acknowledged the mistake, estimating that fewer than 2,000 duplicates were printed and mailed out among the roughly 74,000 that were prepared for registered voters over the past few weeks.

The mass reissue was all done in-house, with four recorder's office employees printing, folding, taping and mailing cards. Every voter ID card in the county needed to be updated. She has a small staff, but it wasn't a small project, Stallworth Pouquette said.

Yuma County has 42 voting precincts. At that level of detail, some pockets of town got repeated.

Stallworth Pouquette learned about the mistake when some county employees who got doubles reported it to her, but she was more concerned that people get their cards.

“On the ID card there is the precinct number, the supervisor district, the legislative district and the congressional district printed on it, and I really wanted to make sure voters were very well aware of those districts before they received their early ballots.”

All of the cards were mailed out at once and postage charged by weight. The lightweight cards were mailed folded onto themselves, not inside envelopes.

This made the weight difference, and thus the cost difference, slight — the error was an “extremely minimal” use of resources, Stallworth Pouquette said. She estimated about 14 cents per card.

There could be one reason why somebody wouldn't have received a voter identification card, though: moving without updating their voter registration. Election mail isn't forwarded, so even if somebody moved to another place in Yuma County, their new voter ID card didn't follow them and was returned to the recorder.

Call the recorder's office at 373-6034 to update an address and get a correct card.