For Immediate Release
Contacts:
- Magen Howard, (520) 586-5561, C: (419) 901-6600, email Magen Howard
- J.D. Wallace, (520) 586-5157, C: (520) 235-4203, email J.D Wallace
Benson – Making sure rural residents have a voice in the Nov. 3 election was a priority as Arizona G&T Cooperatives (AzGT) held a voter registration event in Benson on National Voter Registration Day, September 22.
Benson resident Carol Henry was waiting to sign up when the AzGT registration table opened at 8 a.m. “It’s very important to vote and I’m here to make sure my vote is registered and I count,” said Henry, who had moved since the 2018 election. She joined several other area residents filling out voter registration forms at the event held between the Cowboy Way and the Ice Cream Stop on 4th Street in Benson.
A presidential election will be held on November 3 throughout the nation; you can vote in person on that day. Or, Arizona residents may vote early by mail. Statewide and local candidates and initiatives will also appear on the ballot.
AzGT was one of the first electric utility cooperatives to be awarded 5 Star status in the 2020 Co-ops Vote program sponsored by the National Rural Electric Cooperatives Association. “If just 10 percent of the nation’s 45 million electric cooperatives members went to the polls, rural America would own every race on the ballot,” said Leann Paradise, NRECA’s senior associate for grassroots engagement.
Bob Mehrer, who moved from the Denver area to Benson seven months ago, also registered at the AzGT table. “It’s important in the rural areas especially for people to vote,” he said. “Sometimes the small towns get ignored.”
Paradise said Henry and Mehrer are examples of how people in rural areas should be thinking, “with so much at stake in this election.”
The deadline for registering to vote in Arizona was October 15. For information on local, state and national races, visit NRECA’s Co-ops Vote website.
You can view a video featuring highlights of AzGT’s voter registration event and other news on “Videos”, or by following Arizona G&T Cooperatives on Facebook.
About AEPCO
Arizona Electric Power Cooperative (AEPCO) is one of 62 generation and transmission (G&T) electric cooperatives in the nation. AEPCO owns and operates the Apache Generating Station (Apache) near Cochise, Arizona, east of Benson. Apache provides power to more than 161,000 electric meters and 420,000 people in Arizona, California and New Mexico through 6 Class A Member distribution cooperatives. The plant has a combined gross generating capacity of 605 megawatts.
AEPCO also operates and maintains more than 841 miles of electric power transmission line including line owned in part with other utilities, and 33 substations in a network that reaches out from Apache and across Arizona to the northwestern corner of the state. The system includes more than 30 telecommunications towers used for phone and data relay services by AEPCO’s Member cooperatives and customers. From this network, our Member distribution electric cooperatives take the power and distribute it to their member-consumers at the end of the line.
Sierra
Sierra Southwest Cooperative Services, the other cooperative under the AzGT banner, serves the renewable-energy needs of AzGT Member cooperatives and customers by providing a mechanism for maximizing solar and other renewable tax credits through cooperative lenders.