Low turnout so far for in-person primary election voting in Weber County
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- A sign reading “Did you vote?” faces cars on Washington Boulevard outside the Weber Center during Utah’s primary election in Ogden on Monday, June 27, 2016.
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- A ballot showing the candidates in the Ogden mayoral race and the seat C Ogden City Council race. Julez Garcia has withdrawn, though his name is still on the ballot. Ballots are due Tuesday, Sept. 5, 2023.
OGDEN — Time is ticking down to cast ballots in this year’s primary election and officials say that it’s been a slow trickle so far.
According to Weber County Clerk/Auditor Ricky Hatch, as of mid-afternoon Thursday, only 14% of ballots had been received and fewer than 50 people had taken advantage of early in-person voting.
“Turnout has been a little lower than expected,” he said. “Our estimate of 25%-30%, I think, might be a little low. I think we might be up around 35% turnout if turnout is brisk over the weekend.”
Hatch said that in-person voting on Tuesday is limited to the Weber Center from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. Voters must otherwise submit their ballots to a ballot drop box by 8 p.m. that evening or have it postmarked by or on Sept. 5 if sending it through the mail.
In the 2022 general election, he said, the state saw 6.5% of voters vote in person versus 4.3% of Weber County residents.
According to Hatch, results will start to become available shortly after the 8 p.m. poll closure on Tuesday.
“Because these are municipal races, I would recommend they go to their city website to look at the results, but we’ll also have results and links to results on the county elections website,” he said. “I anticipate, unless something goes terribly wrong, we should have the first batch up by about 8:30 p.m. on election night.”
He said he anticipates they will be able to process all of the ballots that were received up until and through this weekend by the close of polls.
“People who vote on election day, those ballots we will not have fully processed by election night, so those will be included in the updated results after election day,” Hatch said. “We anticipate by Thursday, we’ll have 99.9% of the results posted. There will still be some stragglers that were mailed before the deadline but took their time getting back to us.”
The election will still not be official at that point, even with all of the ballots counted. Two weeks after election day — Sept. 19 — the cities are expected to canvas their respective election results.
For more information, visit https://www.weberelections.gov.