Utah GOP voters: Super Tuesday caucuses were ‘incredibly frustrating’

SALT LAKE CITY — Chaos, frustration, confusion, and anger are just some of the emotions expressed by Republican voters in Utah during Super Tuesday’s caucus meetings.

Many voters told KSL TV that they got so frustrated, they went home without voting. One of those included Bret McCormick who showed up to his precinct at Brighton High School on Tuesday at 6 p.m.

“There was just a lot of confusion,” he said. “Which line should I be in? Where do I go? What do I do? How do I access the site? There was just not any control. There was no control.”

McCormick said he was with his wife and eventually they gave up and went home after a couple of hours and never voted.

“Incredibly frustrating, especially that my voice was not heard,” McCormick said. “My vote was not put in so yeah I feel like it was a wasted night. 100% not (an effective way of voting.) No definitely not effective.”

Reports of GOP caucus chaos make waves on Utah’s Super Tuesday

Carole Bonner, from Helper, who voted in Wasatch County said she felt lost and confused. She didn’t have a cell phone and had no way of navigating the QR codes and website. She said she gave up and went home in tears and believes many other elderly did the same thing.

“I’ve always been a great supporter of voting. We are a generation that know how to vote and we care about our country,” she said. “The frustration was real. I went home and said to my husband, wow I think we are done. We don’t need to be here any longer. I’m feeling like we don’t matter anymore maybe because of our age. I felt stupid. I felt done I guess.”

Robert Axson, chairman of the Utah Republican Party, sat down for a one-on-one interview with KSL TV. He admitted some things didn’t run smoothly and said he was sorry about that.

He said the biggest issue was that the computer system crashed for more than 20 minutes.

“There were a handful of locations, mainly along the Wasatch Front that things didn’t run smoothly, and I appreciate and I’m sympathetic to the folks who were frustrated. We certainly take the feedback and lesson learned, appreciate them being there.”

But he said overall, he believes things did run well. “I was grateful that in the vast majority of our nearly 2,400 precinct locations, things ran smoothly.”

But he does believe changes will be made as a result of what he’s hearing.

“We’ll have to look at what worked this time what didn’t work this time, and factor that in four years from now, when we make that determination,” he said.