SANDPOINT — Residents cannot vote often during the May 19 primary election, but Bonner County Clerk Michael Rosedale is urging people to vote early.

“This is the opposite of the pandemic. We’re not trying to flatten the curve by pushing it out. We’re trying to bring the curve sooner so we avoid that bubble at the very end,” Rosedale said.

The bubble Rosedale refers to is the glut of absentee ballots that are expected in the run-up to the 8 p.m. deadline on May 19 for people to request an absentee ballot in order to vote in the election.

Under normal circumstances, Rosedale would have more than 200 election volunteers to help process ballots. But with the novel coronavirus, the task is falling to the Elections Office five-person staff and a couple of employees in the auditing department.

As of May 1, Bonner County tallied 6,970 absentee ballot requests, according to the Idaho Secretary of State.

“It’s about 8,000 voters as of now, but I’m expecting over 50 percent (turnout) by the time everything is said and done,” Rosedale said.

Absentee ballots can be requested by filling out a form and depositing it into a secure ballot box outside the Elections Office. They can also be downloaded on the county’s website (bonnercountyid.gov). They can also be requested by calling or emailing the Elections Office.

Rosedale is encouraging people to print out the request form, copy it and distribute to everyone they know.

“There is nothing technically sacred about that form,” he said. “Share with anybody you possibly can just to make sure that whoever wants to vote gets to vote.”

The secretary of state, meanwhile, is sending out more than 550,000 ballot request forms.

Although some may be leery of conducting an election entirely by mail, Rosedale said Idaho’s absentee voting process is quite stringent unlike some other states.

“They don’t have hyper-strict protocols. Idaho does,” Rosedale said.

For those who worry about people voting often in the primary by submitting more than one ballot, Rosedale said unique identification numbers printed on the ballot only allow it to be counted once when it’s scanned.

“Only the first ballot that’s read through our machine is valid. The rest are automatically discarded because it’s a unique ID number,” he said.

Deputy clerks also verify signatures on the ballot with signatures on file in the clerk’s office. If they vary too much, clerks will contact the voter to make sure nobody swiped their mail, forged the voter’s signature and returned the ballot.

No bogus ballots have turned up so far, but clerks have contacted a number of voters.

“People’s signatures vary,” said Rosedale.

Voters have until 8 p.m. on June 2 to return their absentee ballots in order for them to be counted.

Keith Kinnaird can be reached by email at kkinnaird@bonnercountydailybee.com and follow him on Twitter @KeithDailyBee.