This article was first published in the  Idaho Capital Sun

With less than two months before the 2026 midterm elections, election officials across Idaho mailed the first round of mail-in ballots to voters who are overseas or who requested absentee ballots locally.

The finalization of ballots in Idaho follows after a weekslong crunch to change contested language for an abortion legalization ballot initiative and attempts by the Trump administration to implement a federal rule that could’ve made last-minute changes to ballots.

“Everything is on track,” said Idaho Secretary of State Phil McGrane, the state’s top election official who’s running for re-election as a Republican.

More than a month before the Nov. 3 general election, local election officials are expected to finalize ballots. That’s because federal law requires the first slate of mail-in ballots be shipped 45 days before federal elections to voters who are overseas, such as members of the military or missionaries. In Ada County, Idaho’s largest, election officials were expecting to mail out more than 24,000 ballots on Friday, Trent Tripple, the Republican county clerk, told the Idaho Capital Sun. That includes overseas and military voters, along with everyone who had already requested an absentee ballot, he said.

Voters still have more than a month to request absentee ballots or register to vote before Election Day. Oct. 23 is the deadline to request absentee ballots or pre-register to vote, according to an election calendar on VoteIdaho.gov, a website run by the Secretary of State’s Office.

This year, all statewide constitutional offices — such as governor, lieutenant governor, and attorney general — are up for election as well as all 105 seats in the Idaho Legislature. Three of Idaho’s four congressional seats will also be on the ballot.

The crunch to finalize ballots in Idaho

Election officials in Ada County — which is home to Boise — had told the state they were working on a Sept. 9 deadline to finalize the design of ballots ahead of shipping the first round of absentee ballots out.

One legal dispute came close to that deadline.

With just four days left to go until Ada County’s deadline, the Idaho Supreme Court quickly finished its work resolving a lawsuit by the organizers of the abortion ballot initiative. On the Friday before Labor Day weekend, the state’s high court required state officials, including McGrane, to rewrite statements about what votes on the initiative would do. Before the work week started, the court had approved redrafted language.

“It could’ve gotten a lot closer to the wire,” McGrane said in an interview. “It is impressive that the Idaho Supreme Court was issuing decisions on Sunday during Labor Day weekend in an effort to meet the deadline.”

Making changes to ballot design close to the deadline is more than changing a single ballot, election officials say. That’s because there’s many variations of ballots that can change based on which taxing, legislative and congressional districts that voters live within.

In Ada County, Tripple said there’s 202 different ballots — and that election officials are juggling state regulations that require ballots to randomly rotate candidate names.

“It’s not a one ballot for everybody. It depends on where you live,” he said, adding that “making sure all of those various requirements flow nicely within a document is a real hurdle.”

Ada County also ran into one more hitch preparing for the elections, which wasn’t related to laying out ballots.

This year, the Legislature passed a law to make elections for the Ada County Highway District partisan and districtwide, with the expectation that those changes wouldn’t take effect until the next election cycle in 2028, the Idaho Press reported. But Tripple said the county has interpreted the districtwide requirement to already be in effect for this election cycle.

Not all ballots are printed in Ada County. For others, the county prints ballots on demand as voters come in, Tripple said.

Idaho Capital Sun is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Idaho Capital Sun maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Christina Lords for questions: info@idahocapitalsun.com.