Early Utah County voting to put machines to test
Balloting starts Tuesday on touch screens in Provo
Early voting begins Tuesday statewide, adding convenience for voters and saving counties money as they implement federally required electronic voting machines.
Five of Utah County's 1,074 Diebold touch-screen machines will be up and running Tuesday in the county administration building for those eager to cast their primary ballots.
Because Utah County has a small ballot and typically gets low turnouts for primaries, Clerk/Auditor Kim Jackson said the early voting's debut will be "a good trial run."
"For the first time around (with the new equipment), if we could get 20 percent we'd be pretty happy," he said. "But I think it's going to be lower than that."
Jackson said he expects turnout for early voting to increase as the word gets out and people become familiar with the practice.
A change to the state election code allowing for early voting was passed by the state Legislature during the 2006 general session.
Counties can conduct early voting at satellite locations in any government-owned building, including libraries and schools.
Jackson said the county likely will extend those hours and add a Saturday for early voting in the future.
"We want to monitor it and make sure everything works correctly before we launch it into different locations and extend the hours," he said.
Officials say Utah County's rapidly increasing population makes early voting critical. Had the Legislature not made early voting at satellite locations possible, Utah County likely would have needed to purchase 100 new machines — at $3,200 each — for county elections every other year.
"It has the potential of helping us a lot," Jackson said. "It will help us utilize those machines more effectively."
Utah County election workers have been training on the new electronic voting equipment for the past two weeks. That training will continue through June 21, said Sandy Hoffmann, county elections coordinator.
"I think they're wonderful," Hoffmann said of the machines. "We have the capability of doing things now that we never were able to do before with our old system."
Among those new capabilities is accessibility for the blind and the hearing impaired, she said.
Early voting
What: Early voting for the 2006 primary election
When: 8 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesday-Friday and June 19-23.
Where: Utah County Administration Building, 100 E. Center St., Provo
Other: Picture IDs are mandatory for early voting. The Republican primary is closed, meaning voters must be registered as a Republican or unaffiliated to vote in the GOP ballot.
E-mail: jpage@desnews.com
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