AARP town hall covers Idaho voting procedures; COVID-19 updates

BOISE, Idaho (CBS2) — Governor Little hosted astatewide AARP telephone town hall to provide information and answer questions regarding COVID-19 in Idaho.

Officials on the call discussed the current COVID-19 situation in the state, election and voting procedures amidst a pandemic and the distribution of rapid COVID-19 tests.

Little teamed up with AARP, Secretary of State Chief Deputy, Chad Houck,Secretary of State, Lawerence Denney, and Director of Department of Health and Welfare,Dave Jeppesen, to answer the public's questions about the upcoming election and Coronavirus.

Dave Jeppesen says Idaho is seeing an upward trend of COVID-19 cases. These cases most likely come from congregate living settings, labor day gatherings, and social gatherings.

"We are seeing the highest growth in the categories 18-29, and we think it's driven by young adults going to college," Jeppesen said.

Jeppesen says the Eastern Public Health District, around the Idaho Falls area, has the highest cases this week of any health district in the state.

"Testing wise, positivity was going down but now it's going up again. The latest data we have on that is 8.1 percent. It is going up in all public health districts except for Central District Health which is staying flat to a slight decline," Jeppesen said.

Jeppesen says, although hospitalizations and long-term care center cases for COVID-19 are declining, we have to remember that 460 people died across the state from the coronavirus.

"Many of you may be feeling a little COVID fatigue, and I just want to encourage all of us to both acknowledge that but recognize as case numbers go up, that it is really important that all of us get our flu shots as we enter the fall and its even more important than ever that all of us wear masks and practice social distancing," Jeppesen said.

Chad Houck says Idaho is in the midst of a historic election year.

"It started back in March when we had a tremendous turnout. It was the first time in a while that we had both major parties in the state operating in a primary environment as opposed to a primary and a caucus. We go into May and we had our first absentee only primary relating to the pandemic and as a result of that we've seen significantly higher absentee request going into this presidential election coming up in November," Houck said.

Houck says it's likely that 35- 40 percent of votes cast will be cast by absentee ballots.

"We may see Idaho's one-millionth registered voter. Sitting in this election cycle we are seeing about 980,000 voters right now," Houck said.

Houck says that November will most likely have normal election procedures in terms of the way the election will be run. Officials are working on election security extensively and visited all 44 counties in the last 6 to 7 weeks.

Houck says polling opens in Idaho on November 3. After Friday, you can go to idahovotes.gov or talk to your local county clerk to find your polling location.

Tune into the next AARP town hall on October 13 from 12-1 p.m. The discussion will be about coronavirus updates and open enrollment medicare.

You can watch the entire AARP town hall with Governor Little HERE.