Election Changes Ordered By Court

Riley County Clerk Rich Vargo told the Riley County Commission Monday that he had received word that the Federal Court handling the Congressional redistricting lawsuit issued its second order on Wednesday, June 19.

The order contained two provisions of importance to county election officers:

1. The deadline for county election officers to mail federal services absentee ballots to military and overseas civilian applicants is moved to July 12, 2002. The statutory deadline was June 21, but that has now been changed for this year by the court. This shortens the federal services voting period from 45 days to 24 days.

2. The beginning of advance voting is moved to July 24, 2002. The statutory deadline was July 17.

This shortens the advance voting period from 20 days to 13 days. These two orders shorten the federal services and advance voting periods to give county election officers more time to prepare ballots in light of the court’s previous order moving the candidate filing deadline for U.S. House of Representatives from June 24 to July 9.

So far the August 6 primary has not been moved. The hearing on the case is still scheduled for July 2 at 1:00. We anticipate a final ruling in the case between that date and July 8.