Estimated read time: 2-3 minutes
This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.
- A minor misspelling on ballot envelopes, printed with "solemntly" instead of "solemnly," has been reported by the Salt Lake County Clerk, affecting about 100 voters.
- Clerk Lannie Chapman confirmed the typo, attributed to an artwork error sent to printers, will not impact voting outcomes.
- Chapman also emphasized a high turnout for early in-person voting.
SALT LAKE CITY — Some Salt Lake County voters may see a minor misspelling on their ballot envelopes.
The Salt Lake County clerk said a typo got printed on about 100 envelopes that were sent to county voters.
A Reddit user first posted about the error in which the word "solemnly" is spelled "solemntly."
"When you're dealing with the number of ballots that we're dealing with, you have to have them printed well in advance," Salt Lake County Clerk Lannie Chapman said. "So we have many of these (envelopes) at our printer. They were notified of this issue. We said, 'Let's not use that anymore. Let's use this version with the artwork, with the correct spelling of the word solemnly,'" she said.
Chapman said the issue was in the artwork sent to the printers.
"I don't want to blame anybody. But this is something that we will definitely keep an eye on going forward," Chapman said.
She was very clear that the misspelling would not impact the voters' vote in any way.
"It doesn't affect the outcome. Yeah, just a typo," she said.
Other commenters in the Reddit post said their ballot envelopes were spelled correctly.
"It sounds like there were a few voters in Salt Lake and Draper who got these," Chapman said.
Early in-person voting opens
Meanwhile, Salt Lake County was the first county in Utah to open early in-person voting. Chapman said around mid-afternoon, about 450 voters had come to vote in person — which she said was a very big number compared to past elections.
"Compared to the last couple of elections, the June primary, the March presidential primary, we barely had 20 voters on the first day. So this is blowing it out of the water," she said.
Many voters who spoke with KSL-TV said they like the convenience and the ease of voting early.
"I'm going back to school in Washington today, so I figured I wanted to vote now, and I wanted to vote ideally with my brother," said Hailey Yentsch, who was there with her brother, Tyler.
"I think that it's just our right as American citizens and our responsibility to vote for our next leader and other leaders," Tyler Yentsch said.
"No one wants to wait in lines. And if I can come at a time when there are a few people voting and that's an easy process," Jim Sweeney, another Salt Lake voter, said.
Until next Monday, Oct. 28, only Salt Lake County is doing early in-person voting at the Salt Lake County Government Center's South Building.
Other counties start in-person early voting next week. Voters can find their nearest polling location here.
By-mail ballots have been out for about a week, according to the Utah Lt. Governor's Office. As of Tuesday, turnout was about 6%.
Good morning, Utah! Here's the first 🚨ELECTION UPDATE🚨 for the 2024 General Election.
— Deidre Henderson (@DeidreHenderson) October 22, 2024
These are ballots that have been returned & processed.
Total returned: 6%
Top 3: San Juan 23.2%; Grand 14.4%, Kane 14.3%
Track you ballot at https://t.co/Mb1WY6NazI#Election2024#utpolpic.twitter.com/1Mc4D6lyoJ
