Estimated read time: 1-2 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 Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information.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 recent KSL editorial called for moving primary election day in Utah back to September. “June,” we said, “simply isn’t a good time for an election.”
Todd Taylor offers another viewpoint. He is a former Executive Director of the Utah State Democratic Party and played a role more than a decade ago in settling on the June date.
“That decision,” wrote Taylor, “was not ridiculous, or a mistake, and the primary does not belong in September. Such a characterization is offensive to those of us who worked hard to get a workable primary date. Most of us still stand behind it.
“The late primary was very destructive to the political parties due to intra-party fights, caused excessive rancor that continued to poison the legislative sessions, and was conducive to poor governance. Further, the national parties failed to participate in Utah politics even more than they do today.”
“The change to June was one of the few sane things to happen in Utah politics.”
“If ‘people have a hard time getting into a political mood,’ perhaps the news media could do a better job of increasing interest as they did in 1992, and not apparently since.”
A more complete text of Todd Taylor’s reply, along with data he provided on voter turnout over the years, can be found on our website at www.ksl.com.
