Update Regarding the Torrance County Commission Meeting on October 23, 2024

In response to a reader's helpful question regarding the article addressing the October 23, 2024, meeting of the Torrance County Commissioners, I wanted to offer a few clarifications.

I had written

Linda Jaramillo, County Clerk, spoke on early voting. She stated that the deadline for absentee ballots had passed. She said that 140 ballots went out without return addresses, but that she had notified the post offices in Torrance County and Bernalillo County and received back 88 completed ballots missing their labels.

With respect to this, Jaramillo was saying that the deadline for requesting absentee ballots had passed, not the deadline for returning absentee ballots.

With respect to the return addresses on absentee ballots, Jaramillo mailed absentee ballots out but omitted the address for the county offices on the ballot return envelope. I’ve attached an example (my ballot, in fact).

Other readers have sent messages indicating that their ballot return envelopes (not to be confused with the privacy envelopes included with ballots) were missing return addresses. These readers stated that USPS employees advised that they did not know where to send these ballots. Jaramillo said that of the ballots mailed out without return addresses, she received 88 back, which implied that the missing address is not causing problems.  I will be addressing the absentee ballot issue in detail in a future article.