Good to see county address privacy concern

There is an expectation of privacy when voting, so when people found their signatures were visible on the outside of Yuma County mail-in ballots in recent elections, there was reason for concern.

Something has now been done about that issue. Most of the early mail ballots sent out for the Sept.  1 Yuma primary election have an extended flap on the ballot envelope that hides the signature of the voter returning the ballot. Future election ballots will also have this feature.

While some of the ballots that went out this time were the old-style ones, since election officials were unsure they would receive the new ones in time, most voters will benefit from the change. And that is a significant number of people - so far more that 10,000 mail ballots have gone out.

It is refreshing to see a public concern addressed in this manner instead of simply being dismissed as irrelevant.

"I understand their concerns in an age of identity theft," said County Recorder Robyn Stallworth Pouquette, whose department handles elections. She felt the issue should be resolved, especially since some voters were declining to mail them out of privacy concerns and were instead dropping them off directly at the recorder's office, in effect denying them the ability to use the mail option.

Mail voting is no small matter. After all, a large majority of Yuma County residents now choose to vote by mail via early ballots. In the most recent election in May concerning the hospitality tax, 83 percent of those who cast ballots did so by mail ballot.

Safeguarding the integrity of the voting process is a key responsibility of the recorder's office and that includes ensuring that the trust of voters is maintained in the system. Eliminating this privacy concern helps do that.