Early voting locations for S. Az congressional election opening Friday

A roundup of upcoming Tucson-area political events: Early voting sites open Friday for special congressional election on Sept. 23; Sentinel team on the airwaves; City Council elections on the horizon; & more

Send your events for Tucson Sentinel’s political calendar to [email protected].

Ahead of next Tuesday’s special congressional election in Congressional District 7, the Pima County Recorder’s Office will open four additional early voting sites on Friday.

Candidates in the special election, made necessary by the March death of longtime Southern
Arizona U.S. Rep. Raúl Grijalva, include Grijalva’s daughter, Democrat
Adelita Grijalva; Republican Daniel Butierez; Green Party candidate
Eduardo Quintana; and frequent parody candidate Richard Grayson on the
No Labels ticket.

Find the Tucson Sentinel’s coverage of the race here.

The new early voting locations include the Sahuarita Library, 670 W. Sahuarita Rd.; Pascua Yaqui Tribal Chambers, 7474 Camino de Oeste; Salazar-Ajo Library, 15 W. Plaza St. in Ajo; and TOKA Community Building, 51 Baboquivari Dr. in Sells.

The early voting locations join the voting locations that were already open at the Pima County Recorder’s Office
location Downtown at 240 N. Stone Ave, the East Side office at 6920 E.
Broadway and the Recorder’s South Side branch at 6550 S. Country Club
Rd. 

All are open from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Sept. 19.

On Sept. 20 and Sept. 22, early voting locations will be rebranded as
emergency voting locations. 

They will all be open from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.
on Saturday. On Monday, the emergency voting centers at the Recorder’s
Office branches will be open from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., while the other locations will
be open from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.

In previous elections, including the CD7 primary election in July, the Recorder’s Office has opened early voting sites earlier in the run-up to the election.

Spokesperson Mike Truelsen said so few people came to the early voting sites in the primary that Recorder Gabriella Cázares-Kelly decided it wasn’t necessary to open the additional sites until the weekend before the election.

“For each election, we carefully evaluate potential voting locations by coupling our site statistics with a specialized tool that helps us identify the best sites based on voter participation,” Truelsen told Tucson Sentinel. “This election’s list of sites is similar to what we offered for the primary, except for the Marana location, which only had nine voters over seven days. Additionally, the Sahuarita site was open all week during the primary but saw just 27 voters total, an average of about four a day. As a result, we reduced the number of hours and locations to better focus our resources to meet the demands of voters.”

Because ballots must be in the custody of the Pima
County Recorder’s Office by 7 p.m.
on Sept. 23 or they will be disqualified, election officials advise voters who have not yet mailed their ballots to instead drop them off at any of the early or emergency voting locations or at one of the county’s two new ballot drop boxes, which will be
monitored by video cameras around the clock. The boxes include a
waterless fire-suppression system and other anti-theft features.

Those
drop boxes, which have been used in Maricopa County for years, are
secured boxes similar to mailboxes. For the CD7 election, drop boxes
will be located outside the Recorder’s Downtown branch at 240 N. Stone
Ave. and at the East Side location, 6920 E. Broadway.

Ballots can also be dropped off in person at a voting site on Election Day, on Tuesday.

Early voting in the race began on Aug. 27.

The Democrats have a
significant voter registration advantage in the district, where 40
percent of voters are registered Dems, 21 percent are registered
Republicans and the remaining 39 percent are independent of the two
major parties.

Nearly 61 percent of CD 7 voters live in Pima
County, while 14 percent live in Yuma County, 13 percent are in Maricopa
County, 7 percent are in Santa Cruz County, 4 percent are in Cochise
County and less than 1 percent are in Pinal County.

The district includes precincts in Tucson, Yuma, Nogales, Douglas, Sells and other areas in Southern Arizona.

The Recorder’s Office’s new online dashboard
allows Pima County residents to sign in and view their voter records
such as the status of their early ballot and voter registration, the
jurisdictions they can cast a ballot in and their voter history. They
can also sign up for various alerts.

Visit Pima.Vote for more details about voting in Pima County.

Friday, Sept. 18: Tucson Sentinel reporter Paul Ingram joins a
panel of journalists on AZPM’s Press Room to discuss the major news
stories of the week. Steve Goldstein moderates. Program airs at 8:30
p.m. on PBS 6 and NPR affiliate KUAZ-FM, 89.1 FM, streams on the AZPM YouTube channel and can heard as a podcast here.

Tuesday, Sept. 23: General Election Day for CD7 special election. Election officials plan to open 59 vote centers across Pima County’s
portion of CD 7 on Sept. 23, according to Elections Director Constance
Hargrove. Find a list of vote centers here.

Monday, Oct. 6: Deadline to register to vote in Nov. 4 city of Tucson election for Wards 3, 5 and 6. All city voters are eligible to vote in the election.

In
North Side Ward 3, incumbent Democrat Kevin Dahl is facing Republican
challenger Janet Wittenbraker, who made her political debut unsuccessfully running
against Tucson Mayor Regina Romero two years ago and followed that up
with an failed bid for the District 3 seat on the Board of
Supervisors in 2024. 

In the race for an open seat in Midtown Ward
6, Democrat Miranda Schubert is facing Republican Jay Tolkoff. The is
an open seat in the ward because current Ward 6 Councilmember Karin
Uhlich is not seeking the seat. Uhlich was appointed to the office after
Democrat Steve Kozachik, first elected in 2009 (as a Republican),
stepped down to take a job with Pima County.

In
South Side Ward 5, Democrat Selina Barajas is facing no opposition in
her run for the seat previously held by Richard Fimbes, who stepped down
earlier this year because of health struggles. (The City Council appointed Rocque
Perez to the seat, but he is not running to hold the position in the election.)

Wednesday, Oct. 8: Tucson City Clerk mails ballots to all registered voters in city of Tucson and early voting opens at the city’s Election Center, 800 E. 12th St.

Wednesday, Oct. 22: Last day to request an early ballot for the Tucson City Council elections by mail.

Friday, Oct. 24: Sentinel reporter Paul Ingram joins host Bill Buckmaster to interview Tucson City Manager Tim Thomure. The Buckmaster show airs at noon on KVOI, 1030
AM. Episodes stream at buckmastershow.com.

Tuesday, Oct. 28: Recommended deadline to return a City Council ballot by mail to ensure the postal service will deliver it to Tucson election officials by 7 p.m. on Election Day, Nov. 4.

Tuesday, Nov. 4: General Election Day for Tucson City Council races. Voting centers open in each ward from 6 a.m. to 7 p.m.