In-person balloting site confusion in Weber County complicates voting for some
-
- Voters fill out ballots at the Weber County Fairgrounds in-person voting site in Ogden on Tuesday, Nov. 8, 2022.
-
- Patrick Mosher, right, gets a ballot at the in-person voting site at the Weber County Fairgrounds in Ogden on Tuesday, Nov. 8, 2022. From the left are election workers Mary Winiarski Linnane and Julie Polzin.
-
- Dmitry Skoog fills out a ballot at the Weber County Fairgrounds in-person voting site in Ogden on Tuesday, Nov. 8, 2022.
OGDEN — Trying to track down the in-person voting location in Weber County early Tuesday morning, Yeimy Davis turned to the web.
The app she tapped for help — operated by a national nonprofit group that promotes voter registration and get-out-the-vote efforts, Vote.org — directed her to the Weber Center at 24th Street and Washington Boulevard. Turns out that was the location for in-person voting for the June 28 primary, but in-person balloting on Election Day, Tuesday, was to be held only at the Weber County Fairgrounds Complex and the Ogden Valley Branch library in Huntsville.
She regrouped and made it to the fairgrounds site, about 5 miles north of the Weber Center. “I was able to vote because I have a car and I have a flexible schedule with my job,” she said.
But there were others like her at the Weber Center on Tuesday morning, thinking that was the place to vote, and she wonders if they were ultimately able to make it to the fairgrounds to cast their ballots. Google, with a link to voting locations on its main landing page on Tuesday, also had incorrect voting information for Weber County, though it was later fixed.
“I don’t know if they voted or they didn’t. I didn’t see them over there,” Davis said.
The situation gnawed at Weber County Clerk/Auditor Ricky Hatch, who oversees voting in the county. He quickly reached out to his election contacts to remedy the online misinformation — eventually fixed — and sent messages via social media to set the record straight. Ultimately, with continued reports of misdirected voters, he opened the Weber Center to voting late Tuesday afternoon.
“Our goal is to reduce barriers (to voting),” he said.
More generally, though, the mix-up — which seems to have impacted only a limited number of people — underscores the nomadic nature of in-person voting in Weber County. Dating to 2019, the in-person balloting location for primary and/or general election voting has been held at four varied locations or sets of locations.
“We have changed voting centers over the years,” Hatch acknowledged on Tuesday, monitoring voting from the fairgrounds.
The shifts, though, weren’t arbitrary. They were aimed at more efficiently handling voting.
In-person voting for the June 28 primary, Election Day on Nov. 2, 2021, and the Aug. 3, 2021, primary was held at the Weber Center, the seat of county government. In-person voting on Election Day on Nov. 3, 2020, and in the June 30, 2020, primary was held at the fairgrounds.
In-person voting for the March 3, 2020, presidential primary was held at Union Station in Ogden, which also caused confusion that year for some as voting had typically been held up till then at the five libraries around the county. Indeed, in-person voting on Election Day on Nov. 5, 2019, and Nov. 6, 2018, was held at the five Weber County libraries and the fairgrounds, giving voters a broader range of geographical options.
With the trend toward mail-in balloting — now typically accounting for more than 90% of voting in Weber County — Hatch said election officials had thought Union Station would be a good site to centralize Election Day voting. Turns out it’s OK when “moderate” turnout is expected, but not heavier turnout, which spurred the decision to focus voting on Tuesday at the fairgrounds complex with its large parking area and vast indoor spaces.
Whatever the case, Angel Castillo, a community advocate in Ogden who caught wind of Davis’ plight and helped her pinpoint where to vote, wonders why election officials didn’t do more to spread word about the Election Day voting sites.
“Why wasn’t it blasted out for days?” said Castillo, otherwise praiseworthy of Weber County election officials’ efforts. The Weber County Elections Office website and other elections office social media identified the correct locations.
She also wonders why there wasn’t an in-person voting site in central Ogden to start with, more accessible to the moderate- and low-income people who live in the city’s core area and don’t have as many transportation options. “How can you not have an in-person voting center at the county seat?” she said.
The fairgrounds site isn’t directly accessible by public transport, she noted, which would make it tough for those without cars. They’d have to take two buses from the Weber Center, she said, and then they’d have to walk the last 0.7 miles, a one-way trip of nearly 50 minutes.
After word got out that the Weber Center opened to in-person voting, her criticism thawed. “Thanks for accommodating working (folks) who use public transit,” she said in a message to the Standard-Examiner.