Jackson County trying to clear voter rolls before presidential election

County election commissioners are trying desperately to clear the voter rolls before the Nov. 8 presidential election to avoid thousands of affidavit ballots.

Affidavit ballots are cast by voters when their address doesn’t match what the county has on its voter rolls. The system of checking for the address of a voter is in place to keep people from voting where they don’t live or voting more than once.

Danny Glaskox, head of the Election Commission in Jackson County, told the Sun Herald that in the last general election they had 4,000 affidavit ballots to clear. He said there are only five election commissioners and they have only 10 days to certify an election and it takes awhile to check an affidavit ballot. Only election commissioners can process that special ballot.

So election commissioners are making a push to get voters to check in with their circuit clerk to make sure their address is current with the county.

“If you’ve moved since the last election, check in,” Glaskox said. “If you’ve changed your address, we need you to correct it now.”

Jackson County has 9,100 inactive voters, which means that many people have something going on with their home address. More than likely, they moved. It doesn’t matter whether you move in the county or to another state.

“We want the database cleaned up,” Glaskox said.

But in order to correct information, a voter must give their signature. Jackson County has sent out 5,000 cards to voters who have shown up on the U.S. Postal Service’s change of address list. Voters can sign these cards and return them to the election commission. Many have been corrected.

In industrial Jackson County, workers move from job to job and apartment to apartment, he said. They may just move within the same apartment complex, but that’s enough to require an affidavit ballot.

“We need these people who are inactive to contact us,” Glaskox said. “It doesn’t mean they can’t vote, it just means something is wrong.”

This story was originally published July 15, 2016 at 6:00 AM with the headline "Jackson County trying to clear voter rolls before presidential election."