YOUR VOTE IS YOUR VOICE
Know the dates • October 5 is the last day to register to vote or update your registration for the November election. If you have moved, changed your name, or are not certain your registration is current, check today. • Early voting begins October 7. Ballots go out in the mail to voters on the Active Early Voting List. • October 23 is the last day to request an early ballot. • October 30 is the last day to vote early in person. • November 3 is Election Day. Vote centers in Pima County are open from 6:00 am–7:00 pm, and you may vote at any of them, not only the one closest to your home. If you are returning a mail ballot by post, send it back roughly a week before Election Day, so it arrives in time. Ballots must be received by 7:00 pm on November 3. A postmark is not enough. If you are close to the deadline, drop it off in person instead of mailing it. Where to find information you can trust There is no shortage of election infor- mation, however there is a shortage of election information that is not trying to sell you something. A few sources exist for the sole purpose of telling you what is true and letting you decide what to do with it. • Arizona Citizens Clean Elections Commission azcleanelections.gov This is the state’s nonpartisan voter education agency, created by Arizona voters in 1998. It publishes the Voter Education Guide , which is mailed to households with a registered voter and includes
Dear Friends, Every two years, this community holds a conversation about its future. On November 3, that conversation happens at the ballot box. Arizona will choose a governor, and for the first time a lieutenant governor. Voters will decide on an attorney general, secretary of state, corporation commissioners, all nine congressional seats, the entire state legislature, judicial retentions, and local offices and measures closer to home. Very little on that ballot is abstract for older adults. Decisions made by the people elected in November shape long term care policy, transportation funding, housing, utility rates, prescription drug costs, and the state and federal dollars that support nearly everything PCOA does. I want to be direct about something. Older adults are the most reliable voters in this country. In 2024, roughly 75 percent of citizens 65 and older voted, well above every younger age group. That consistency is a form of power, and it is earned. It comes from decades of paying attention, from knowing how government actually touches a life, and from understanding that showing up matters more than being loud. But reliability is not the same as certainty. Turnout in a midterm year is always lower than in a presidential year, and the barriers that keep an older person from voting are rarely about willingness. They are about a ride that did not come, a ballot that arrived while someone was in the hospital, a form that was hard to read, or simply not knowing where to find information that has not already been shaped to persuade. Those are solvable problems. This letter is about solving them.
Robert Ojeda, PhD
candidate statements in the candidates’ own words, without editing or endorsement. It also hosts candidate debates. • Vote411.org from the League of Women Voters Education Fund. Enter your address and see your actual ballot, the candidates on it, and their answers to the same set of questions. It is free and nonpartisan. • Pima County Recorder’s Office recorder.pima.gov or (520) 724-4330. This is the official source for your registration status, your sample ballot, your early ballot status, and voting locations. Pima.vote maps every early voting site and vote center. • Arizona Secretary of State azsos.gov for statewide election information and registration. A word of caution that I offer without apology. Election season brings a rise in calls, texts, and mailings designed to confuse or frighten older people, and some of them are outright scams. No legitimate organization will call and ask you to pay a fee to vote or ask for your Social Security number or bank
September & October 2026, Never Too Late | Page 3
Pima Council on Aging
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