New electronic voting machines will bring some voters into the 21st century in more ways than one, while others will find themselves casting ballots in a relatively old-fashioned way.

Unlike previous years, almost all Salt Lake County voters will vote at a polling location instead of being forced to mail in their ballots. The main reason, Salt Lake County Clerk Sherrie Swensen said, is that the new machines can be programmed for many different ballots.

That is especially important in areas that can have a number of different combinations of school district, county and legislative seats. The problems were caused because redistricting after the 2000 Census did not follow precinct boundaries.

Until this year, most of those precincts voted with an absentee ballot that they mailed to the county before the election. The difficulty was that many different ballots would have been needed at the polling stations for relatively few voters. The only by-mail voting area in the county is Brighton in Big Cottonwood Canyon.

"With the new machines, we can have all of the different ballots on one machine and do away with most of the by-mail districts," Swensen said.

Utah County elections coordinator Sandy Hoffman said that the county is considering changing its four by-mail precincts, although they have not been changed for the primary elections. However, with the ease of use of the machines and their ability to store many different ballots, it is likely that they will be changed before November.

"It's more of a pain to do it like this (with paper absentee ballots) than to find more polling places," she said. "I think we will eventually change it."

Not all voters are being helped by the new machines or the new voting laws that were part of the Help America Vote Act in 2002. Those changes, which mandate the new electronic, ATM-style machines, also had a number of provisions meant to help disabled voters.

In Duchesne County, however, the changes meant that voters in the towns of Fruitland and Mountain Home will be voting with absentee ballots mailed to the county clerk's office. In both towns, the traditional polling locations were "older, private buildings" that were not accessible for disabled voters, said Kathy Desormeau, chief deputy clerk.

"The places weren't compliant with HAVA, so we surveyed the residents, and they decided to try the by-mail precincts," she said.

Sanpete County has reduced its by-mail precincts, thanks to a law that allows consolidating the polling place. Now, the unincorporated areas of Chester and Indianola will vote in the nearby towns of Wales and Fairview, respectively, Sanpete County Clerk Kristine Frischknecht said. The change was made after residents of the two areas were surveyed.

Two other counties, Emery and Sevier, also considered expanding their number of by-mail precincts. However, the county commissions in both counties decided against the changes after residents were generally opposed to having to vote by mail.

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E-mail: jloftin@desnews.com