PHOENIX — Arizona's Presidential Preference Election (PPE) is on March 19 and ballots have already been mailed out.
Voters are choosing their preferred presidential candidate in whatever political party they chose when they registered.
Suzanne L. noticed that there are names on her ballot of people who are no longer actively running for president:
The Question
"I received my Presidential Preference ballot today. There are candidates that have withdrawn from the election that are on the ballot. Can you please figure out why?"
Our Sources
12News went to the Arizona Secretary of State's Office to find out why those names are still on the ballot.
The Secretary of State oversees elections for Arizona and is the state's Chief Election Officer.
The Answer
A spokesperson for the office told us it's not necessarily because the ballots have to be sent to the printer long before they're sent out.
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"It’s not because of a printing deadline, more so that candidate committees do not formally shut down their operations after a candidate withdraws due to circumstances beyond our purview," the spokesperson wrote.
"Committees must continue operating to receive the tail end of their donations and as those contributions continue coming in, statutory reporting requirements need to be honored. It’s not as simple as the candidate just conceding a race," the spokesperson said.
Those candidates remain on the ballot, and votes cast for them do count in the final election results.
For example, in 2020, Elizabeth Warren and Pete Buttigieg both received votes, despite having already dropped out of the race.
So we can VERIFY those names are supposed to be there and votes for those candidates do count.
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