Smithville property rights voters wishing to vote in the city liquor referendum and who have not received an absentee request should contact the DeKalb County Election Commission Office.
While registered voters who live inside the corporate city limits may vote in the referendum either by machine on election day or during early voting, city property rights voters may only vote in the referendum by absentee ballot. However, those voters may still come to the polls to cast ballots in the Presidential race and other offices in the November 6 election.
“If you are a resident of the city, (a registered voter living inside the city limits) you can vote in that referendum issue on machine either during early voting or election day,” said Dennis Stanley, Administrator of Elections. “If you are a property rights voter for Smithville, the only way you can vote in the referendum is by absentee. That’s a paper ballot
by mail,” he said.
Smithville aldermen recently adopted an ordinance addressing this issue only for this election hoping to make the process go smoother. ” If you recall sometime ago the City of Smithville adopted an ordinance that for this election only property rights voters would have to vote in the liquor referendum by absentee,” said Stanley. “That eliminates a voter
who waits until election day from having to go to two precincts. For example, someone may be voting for President at their residential precinct at Blue Springs but their property being in Smithville, they would have to come to town and vote. So we eliminated that issue when the city board adopted that ordinance. Remember, if you are a property rights voter, you only vote in the referendum by absentee,” he said.
Stanley stressed that while eligible city property rights voters may only vote by absentee for the liquor referendum, they may still vote by machine for candidates listed on the ballot. ” This has no impact whatsoever on your normal election voting,” said Stanley. “What I mean by that is you still vote for President, U.S. Congress, and State Representative at the
place of your normal county voting or you can come to the courthouse and vote early on the machine. The only issue is if you are a property rights voter and you want to vote in the referendum you have to do that by absentee,” he said.
City property rights voters should have already received their absentee applications by mail. “We mailed out absentee requests to all the property rights voters that we have registered,” said Stanley. “We hope that we mailed them out to the correct address. If you did not get an application to vote in the referendum and you are a property rights voter, let us know and we will get you one and once we get that back we will get you the ballot. The ballot you receive for property rights voters is only for the referendum. The Presidential election and all the other races are not on that ballot,’ he said.
Remember voters at the polls must show a valid state or federal-government issued photo I.D. to vote. For more information call the election commission office at 597-4146 or visit www.dekalbelections.com. Tweet at http://twitter.com/dekalbelect
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