Merrill Cook believes he is going to win the Nov. 2 Salt Lake County mayoral election and says that contention is backed up by a new poll.

Cook said in a press release that a poll conducted last week by Opinion Survey shows him ahead of Democrat Peter Corroon, the front-runner in a Deseret Morning News/KSL poll conducted earlier this month. While he did not release specific numbers, Cook said the poll shows he is getting approximately half of the independent voters.

The poll was conducted for the Cook campaign.

While the poll shows Cook trailing write-in candidate Ellis Ivory, whom Republicans are trying to get on the ballot as their official candidate, Cook says his support among party members will "skyrocket once the citizens really understand that Ellis Ivory has been trying to get his name replaced for Workman in a dishonest manner."

Meantime, County Clerk Sherrie Swensen, a Democrat, is fighting against Republican party leaders' accusations that she has denied their two attempts to certify Ivory as the GOP candidate for political reasons.

On the advice of county attorneys, Swensen has refused to certify Ivory until the county GOP Central Committee meets — which it is scheduled to do tonight — and votes on the matter.

"If I were to place Ellis Ivory's name on the ballot illegally and he were to win, his very election could be contested," she said. "My obligation is to the residents of Salt Lake County, and I would hope that (party chairwoman Tiani Coleman) would respect our work and the law instead of making repeated accusations that our decisions have been political."

Cook is pushing for the Central Committee vote to be secret, citing the party's own bylaws and the danger he perceives that his supporters will be "booted out of the party" if they vote for him.

As for Corroon, he has at least one vote in the bag. With television cameras looking on, Corroon took advantage of a new early voting law to cast his ballot Monday.

"A lot of people don't know they can vote early," he said. "We wanted to show them they can."

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E-mail: aedwards@desnews.com