Utah County Clerk responds to criticism over Election Day issues

PROVO — The Utah County Clerk is now responding to Tuesday’s ballot issues, that led to long lines at the ballot box and compelled the state to send a plane to pick up ballots during the middle of Election Day. 

Utah County Clerk Aaron Davidson believes the issues weren’t as dire as it’s been made out to be. He admits he wasn’t prepared for the wave of voters showing up to the polls, but thinks the criticism he’s receiving after the election is unwarranted.  

Long lines on Election Day in Utah County, proved too much for what Davidson was prepared for. 

“It was more than expected. It was like a tsunami of voters that came out,” Davidson said. 

Davidson said voters who showed up in person, were seven to 10 times more than what they’d seen in the past. And he said they were ready for only half that. That led to ballot shortages in at least six of the 13 polling locations throughout the county. When they went to print more ballots, printers ran out of one of the colors of ink. The shortage became so low it got the attention of Utah Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson.

“By mid-morning yesterday, we were told he had 10,000 ballots he could use to print and burned through about half of those by mid-morning, and there just weren’t extras throughout the state,” Henderson said.

Plane sent to Arizona

So, the state rushed a plane to Phoenix to pick up more ballot paper, just in case they ran out. Fortunately, that didn’t happen, but long lines remained into the evening and contributed to the state’s delayed results at the end of the night. Prior to Election Day, the Utah County Clerk had encouraged voters to show up in person as opposed to mailing in ballots. So, KSL TV asked why he wasn’t prepared for the surge. 

“Just about every county in the state had issues with long lines, I don’t know if any county was fully prepared for what happened yesterday,” Davidson said.

Davidson reiterates no polling locations shut down, in the end all their backup plans worked, and said his county wasn’t the only ones dealing with long lines at the polls.

“Do you feel the criticism is unfair?” KSL asked.

“For pinning solely on Utah County? Yes, we all had the same problems, all had the same issues,” Davidson said.

KSL also asked Davidson about adding polling locations.

He said that’s something he’s in favor of, but said it will cost roughly $10,000 to obtain and store the equipment needed for each additional location. And the money would need to be approved by the Utah County Commissioners.