County clerks will do vote recounts

Any potential vote recounts will be left in the hands of county clerks but only for this year's primary elections, state officials said.

Three races currently fall within the required vote differential of one vote or less per precinct to qualify for a recount, including the tight contest for the Republican nomination in House District 42. In that race, Jim Bird defeated Rep. Peggy Wallace, R-West Jordan, by 24 votes, pending certification of the vote next week.

Although a standard, statewide recount procedure has not been implemented by Lt. Gov. Gary Herbert, who oversees elections in the state, state elections officials did release a suggested recount method. That includes a memory check of the machines, a comparison of the vote rolls to the ballots cast at the precinct level, and a hand count of the paper provisional and absentee ballots, said Joe Demma, chief of staff for Herbert.

The recommendations are only temporary, however, as Demma said the state elections office will issue standard recount procedures by the end of the month. Unless those checks reveal discrepancies, the printed ballot receipt within each machine will not be counted by hand to verify the accuracy of the vote.

"The area we see the most susceptibility to need a recount are the paper ballots," Demma said.

Salt Lake County Clerk Sherrie Swensen, who will learn if there is a recount after the Board of Canvassers certifies the vote Tuesday, said that she would prefer a statewide, mandated procedure. But she understood that it would have been difficult to complete while preparing for the first real test of the machines.

"When races are close, we need to be able to answer how we will conduct a recount — especially with this new technology," she said. "It needs to be at the directive of the lieutenant governor's office, because it's a statewide system. We need specific procedures, but that has not happened."

The recommendations from Herbert's office, however, are satisfactory in the short term.

"We're on the same page with them. We just need to be consistent with it," she said. "I don't think each county clerk should be deciding when and how to do a recount. We shared the machine purchases, we shared their implementation. We need to share recount procedures."