Secretary of State Jan Brewer completes 2008 Primary Election Official Canvass

PHOENIX -- Arizona Secretary of State Jan Brewer signed the Official Canvass of the Primary Election today at 1:30 p.m. The canvass was conducted by the Secretary of State pursuant to Arizona Revised Statutes §16-645 (B).

The voter turnout for this year's Primary Election was 22.8 percent; compared with 24.7 percent in 2004, 23 percent in 2000; and 19 percent in 1998.

“This election went very smoothly with no major problems reported at the polling place,” stated Secretary of State Jan Brewer, “I want to congratulate the counties and my own staff for their truly amazing hard work in pulling off a very successful primary election process.”

Over the past four years, Secretary Brewer pointed to major changes in Arizona 's elections. “Our state has dramatically increased the training of our election workforce to ensure better oversight, the poll worker recruitment and training program greatly exceeded our expectations with over 5,376 people signing up, we implemented the largest full scale security and auditing of ballots process that Arizona's elections have ever seen,” added Secretary Brewer. “In short, I am immensely proud of all of this election reform work which my office and the election workforce throughout this state completed, and we did so without any major incidents.”

“All in all, our 2008 election process went very smoothly, and I pledge to continue building on the successes we've accomplished to date and look forward to meeting the many future challenges to bring additional election reforms forward,” said Secretary Brewer.

Copies of the Canvass are available at the Secretary of State's office on the 7th floor of the State Capitol, by calling the Election Services Division at 1-877-THE-VOTE (1-877-843-8683), or by visiting the Secretary of State's Web site at www.azsos.gov.

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