LAYTON -- With just a few races on the ballot, voters and election workers alike yawned their way through Tuesday's primary election.
Election-day action also was limited by the early- voting provision that let people cast their ballots over the previous two weeks.
At Layton High School, 858 people came to cast their ballots in the 10-day early-voting period.
The school was one of four locations in the county where early voting could take place until Friday.
But poll workers by midafternoon Tuesday said voting had been slow.
"It has not been as busy as we'd like it to be," said Tami Daich, the poll manager.
Holly Horton, of Layton, has worked the polls before, but was running back to her car to get her driver's license before voting.
"I always vote," she said.
Lee and Cari Jackson, a Layton couple, walked out of the school into the bright sunlight after choosing their candidates.
"Since (Sen.) Bennett is out, we would like to have input," said Cari Jackson.
"It is an honor and privilege to vote," added her husband.
The scene was much the same at Weber County polls because there was only one race for Republicans and none for Democrats. Because the GOP primary was open only to Republicans, Democrats and independents had no one to support or oppose.
Gail Baird walked quickly up to the Farr West city office, smiled as she showed her ID to the poll workers and wasted no time putting in her vote, the 96th that the city had seen as of 11 a.m. Tuesday.
Poll workers in Farr West reported brisk business all morning, but that was the exception. Workers elsewhere in Weber County spent a lot of time getting quilts done, catching up on gossip and even doing a little reading as voters dribbled in singly or in pairs, but hardly ever in numbers that caused them to line up.
Baird said she was moving quickly because she was excited to vote for Mike Lee, one of two names on the Republican Party ballot to nominate a candidate to run for U.S. Senator in November.
It wasn't just Lee she was excited about, she said.
"We just need big changes in this country, and I've got to get away from the Obama," she said, referring to President Barack Obama. "To me, it's a big day today, and whatever happens is going to make big changes."
Poll workers in Harrisville were wishing more of their residents felt the same way.
They had 43 votes cast after nearly three hours and described them as "dribbling" in. Poll worker Shanna Edwards said she had her crocheting handy just in case.
Over in Plain City there had been 54 voters by 11:20 a.m., and Virginia Allan admitted that "We've had a few dry spells," but then she glanced through the window and said quickly "... but there's a car!"
Everyone who came in, even old neighbors, got the same treatment: asked for their name, address and picture ID. "I did ask my husband for his ID too. You can put that in the paper," Allan said.
If 54 voters was average for the day, they said, it was hardly an outpouring of patriotic fervor. They said 3,284 people are listed in the city voter registration books, and during the general election a lot more votes are always cast.
"I remember when Tom Miller (a former member of the city council) would put a sign in his truck and drive around telling people to vote," said Pat Smith down at the end of the table where the electronic voting machine keys were neatly laid out.
"Not for anyone in particular; he just wanted them to vote," Smith said. "Young people today take it for granted, but I've only missed voting one time in my life, and that was because I was too sick to get down there."
By the numbers of potential voters, or even square miles of coverage, Union Station's polling place in central Ogden should have been jammed, but the polling tables echoed in the empty hall at 1 p.m. Lorraine Hunsaker said there had been 40 voters all morning.
That surprised the poll workers. The Union Station polling site covers six districts in Ogden, covering the central city east to Jefferson Avenue but going west all the way to the city line past Ogden-Hinckley Airport and north to 12th Street. On a map, it comprises perhaps a fourth of the city's land mass.
"By my math, that encompasses over 10,000 people," said Jeremy Heath, poll manager, and when he first heard how big it was, he got nervous.
But then Heath heard the Salt Lake County clerk on the radio say that "during the last close primary in Salt Lake, they had a 6.7 percent turnout countywide," and he felt better.
With good cause, as it turned out. In 15 minutes, three more voters came in, one of them Sara Miles, of Ogden, whose husband works for the Ogden Fire Department.
She has lived in the same house on Capitol Street for 20 years, she said, but for some reason the voter registration computer showed her living out in Hooper.
Until that gets sorted out, she had to fill out a paper provisional ballot, dropping it into a tin voting box, but she said she was glad to do it.
"I figure with as low a turnout as it is, I should give my vote," she said. "I feel like my vote counts more."
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