It was a bit of a longer road to the general election this year, but for Weber County candidates and voters alike, the beginning of the end of the 2023 election cycle arrives next week.

Tuesday marks election day in Utah and the culmination of several municipal races throughout Weber County.

Weber County Clerk/Auditor Ricky Hatch is reminding area voters that it is crunch time to send in mail-in ballots if you choose to go that route.

“If you are going to return your ballot by the (U.S.) Postal Service, it must be postmarked no later than Monday the 20th,” he said. “If you’re going to drop it in a mailbox, do it this weekend. If you’re going to drop it on Monday, go into the post office and have them stamp it so there’s a date on the envelope.”

This is somewhat of a departure from two months ago when, due to the rescheduled primary election week containing the Labor Day holiday that Monday, voters were able to postmark their mail-in ballots as late as primary day itself.

Hatch is reminding voters that there are also still several drop boxes that can be utilized safely throughout the county.

“Those are open until 8 p.m. Tuesday night,” he said. “We have 23 of them located throughout the county, outdoors, 24 hours per day under video surveillance.”

He said that, as of Thursday night, the county has seen 20% turnout.

“Which is tracking pretty close to what our estimated turnout of 45% is,” he said. “It sounds like it’s pretty consistent across the state. … Turnout is OK, and frankly, for municipal races, states across the country would love to have this kind of turnout for municipal races.”

For those who want to vote in person on election day, vote centers will be open at the Weber Center, 2380 Washington Blvd., and the Ogden Valley Library, 131 S. 7400 East in Huntsville, from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. Tuesday.

Though falling during Thanksgiving week, Hatch said he’ confident the vast majority of ballots will be counted before most people celebrate Thursday.

“On election night, our results release will probably represent about 85% of total ballots cast in the election, and it’s a countywide statistical sample, so I wouldn’t expect the results to change dramatically between election night and the canvass, which takes place two weeks later. We’re also working furiously on Wednesday to process all additional ballots that are received by our office later on election day. By Wednesday evening, our results should represent 99% of all ballots received.”

He said batches of results should be released around 8:45 p.m. each night; however, Wednesday’s results could be announced later than this.

For more information on the 2023 general election, visit https://www.weberelections.gov.