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SALT LAKE CITY — Even though Election Day is Tuesday, an estimated 40 percent of Utahns have already taken advantage of early voting options to cast their ballots.
But that wasn't stopping candidates from continuing to campaign until the polls close at 8 p.m., showing up on busy street corners and on doorsteps, as well as hitting the phones to try to round up supporters.
Both Republican Mia Love and Democrat Doug Owens were staying busy in the final hours of the state's highest profile race this election year to replace retiring Rep. Jim Matheson, D-Utah, in the 4th District.
The race was seen as too close to call in the latest UtahPolicy.com poll released last week. Love, a former Saratoga Springs mayor who nearly beat Matheson in 2012, had a five-point lead over Owens, son of the late Utah congressman Wayne Owens.
"I think it's close, and I'm trying to chase down every vote I can," Owens said midday Monday.
His campaign schedule started at 5 a.m. at a South Jordan TRAX station greeting commuters and ended campaigning with Matheson.
Love, who was in Riverton on the corner of 12600 South and Bangerter Highway on Monday morning, also spent the day trying to get out the vote.
"I'm doing well," Love said. "Tired, but doing well."
Unlike most Utah midterm elections, there is no race for U.S. Senate or governor at the top of the ballot. All of Utah's four congressional seats are up, but the GOP incumbents in the 1st, 2nd and 3rd districts hold substantial leads.
This year's only statewide race is a special election for attorney general.
Attorney General Sean Reyes, the Republican appointed after John Swallow resigned the post amid a criminal investigation that led to public corruption charges, is being challenged by Democrat Charles Stormont for the remainder of Swallow's term.
"In many ways, it is a low-key election in Utah. Nationally, of course, it's a very big election with the U.S. Senate up for grabs," said LaVarr Webb, publisher of UtahPolicy.com. "But it's an important election."
Webb, who writes a column for the Deseret News and will be providing election night commentary for KSL-TV, said despite the lack of attention-getting battles, voters still have plenty of decisions to make.
All of the state House seats are on the ballot, along with half of the state Senate, local government offices, school board seats and a trio of amendments to the Utah Constitution.
"It's a fairly long ballot, even though there aren't a lot of major top-level races that are closely contested," Webb said.
Efforts by the GOP-dominated Legislature to increase voter turnout could have an impact, he said.
Those efforts in recent years include allowing early voting and making it easier for counties to conduct elections entirely by mail. Now, voters in 10 of the state's 29 counties, including Davis County, are mailing in their ballots.
There is also the opportunity in Salt Lake County and other counties participating in a three-year pilot program approved by lawmakers to register to vote on Election Day at the polls and cast a ballot.
Utah Director of Elections Mark Thomas said he expects early voting, including absentee and mail-in ballots, to account for about 40 percent to 45 percent of the votes cast in this year's general election.
Thomas predicted the overall turnout will be around 45 percent of registered voters. That compares with more than 51 percent in the most recent midterm election, in 2010, and is about the same as 2006.
"We've known for at least a decade or two that turnout in Utah has been on the lower end," Thomas said.
And while early voting "changes elections quite a bit" for candidates, it remains to be seen how much it will impact turnout, he said.
Chris Karpowitz, co-director of BYU's Center for the Study of Elections and Democracy, said he expects the state will continue to look for ways to make it easier for Utahns to vote.
"One question I don't think we fully know the answer to is: What's the trade-off there?" Karpowitz said, praising the state for being "pretty creative" in trying to bring more Utahns into the political process.
"It's really important we make voting as accessible as possible for as many as possible," he said. "We also don't want to lose the sense of Election Day being an important community event."
Of course, Karpowitz said, the best way to get more Utahns to vote may also be the most difficult in a state that's been largely controlled by one political party, the GOP, for years
