High percentage of Utah voters expected to turn out tomorrow

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Tom Callan and Gene Kennedy reporting For the first time Utah will participate in a Super Tuesday primary. If you didn't vote early, tomorrow is the big day.

Utah's last major primary election was in 2000, but Utah did not participate with 23 other states. Tomorrow will be different, and for some, the process is all new territory.

The primary allows voters to nominate either one Republican or one Democrat to be the front-runner in the race for president. You can only pick from one party. Scott Warren was confused about that, and he also questioned whether he could vote at all. He said, "'Cause I was registered as an Independent-American, I didn't know if I was going to be able to vote Democratic, ya know."

Sherrie Swensen, Salt Lake County Clerk, said, "They're still confused. I've had some people ask me why they can't vote for both parties. They're concerned that they have to select which ballot to vote on."

Some people are also concerned because they are unaffiliated. They think they can't vote at all, but that's not true.

High percentage of Utah voters expected to turn out tomorrow

If you want to participate in the primary, and you haven't declared yourself Republican or Democrat, you can make your choice at the polls.

Let's say you don't want to pick a particular party. You can still participate, but you can only choose one of the Democrats. If you want to pick a Republican, you have to affiliate yourself with that party.

But remember, that doesn't affect how you vote in November.

Swensen said, "They can still vote for any candidate of any political party."

According to the county clerk, more than 60 percent of registered Salt Lake County voters are not affiliated with a certain political party. If that's you, just to reiterate, you can affiliate right on the spot.

Slow and disappointing, that's how Swensen describes the early voting at a dozen different locations. She says the turnout is only 2 percent.

But Swensen says things should be different on Super Tuesday. "We're estimating and hoping and planning for 40 percent, which would be excellent," she said.

Swensen says joining the primary parade is costing the state $3.3 million. She says in addition to the early voting, 12,000 absentee ballots have been cast.