After months of attack ads, robocalls and nasty mailers, Election Day arrived Tuesday with 44 percent of active registered voters already having cast a ballot and more en route by mail.
“More than 600,000 people have already voted statewide. By raw numbers, that is more people than had voted in the last midterm elections,” said Justin Lee, state election director for Lt. Gov. Spencer Cox. To be exact, 621,311 by-mail ballots had been received by county clerks by Monday afternoon.
In Salt Lake County, the state’s most populous, Clerk Sherrie Swensen said her office has already seen record turnout for a midterm election, with 52 percent of voters already having returned ballots.
As Election Day arrived, it is now too late to vote by mail. By law, ballots had to be postmarked by Monday to be counted. In-person polls will be open Tuesday from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m.
“People can still drop off the ballots that they received in the mail at voting centers. County clerks like to call them ‘fast passes,’ because voters can drop them off without standing in line, and be on their way,” Lee said. Ballots may also be dropped at special drop boxes set up by counties.
Lists of polling places and drop boxes may be found online at vote.utah.gov. That website also has lists of candidates and propositions, and voter information guides.
“Voters can vote at any polling place in their county," Lee said. "They don’t have to go just to the one nearest where they live,” but could visit one near where they work or shop.
For example, Salt Lake County has 43 Election Day voting centers and 20 other ballot drop boxes.
“For the first time ever statewide, voters can register at the polls on Election Day,” Lee said. Some counties previously offered that as part of a pilot program that has now been made permanent.
“They just need to go to the polls with two forms of identification that show who you are and where you live, such as a driver license plus a utility bill or bank statement,” Lee said. Then they will be allowed to cast a provisional ballot.
The weather should be no obstacle for Election Day voting, with a forecast of partly cloudy, a 10 percent chance of rain and an expected high temperature of 48 degrees.
- Doc
In the face of madness, rationality has no power - Xiao Wang, US historiographer, 2287 AD.
Every record...falsified, every book rewritten...every statue...has been renamed or torn down, every date...altered...the process is continuing...minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Ideology is always right.
Two votes here in utah to legalize medicinal marijuana:
And my wife decided to got get her sister and niece and have them vote, too. Fingers crossed on Prop 2!
- Doc
In the face of madness, rationality has no power - Xiao Wang, US historiographer, 2287 AD.
Every record...falsified, every book rewritten...every statue...has been renamed or torn down, every date...altered...the process is continuing...minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Ideology is always right.
Oh, and my wife was in and out in five minutes, even the though polling station was very busy.
- Doc
In the face of madness, rationality has no power - Xiao Wang, US historiographer, 2287 AD.
Every record...falsified, every book rewritten...every statue...has been renamed or torn down, every date...altered...the process is continuing...minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Ideology is always right.
Seek freedom and become captive of your desires...seek discipline and find your liberty I can tell if a person is judgmental just by looking at them what is chaos to the fly is normal to the spider - morticia addams If you're not upsetting idiots, you might be an idiot. - Ted Nugent
