Clerk post hotly contested

Salt Lake County voters will decide on Nov. 7 who will oversee the county's elections for the next four years.

Democrat Sherrie Swensen, who has served as Salt Lake County clerk for the past 16 years, is hoping to extend that stay to 20 years with a fifth term in office.

Challengers Carrie Dickson, Republican, and Charles Bonsall, Libertarian, both say the office is due for a change, charging that party politics are preventing the clerk's office from best serving the public.

Personal Choice candidate Lawrence Topham also is running for Salt Lake County clerk. Attempts to reach Topham for comment were unsuccessful.

Swensen, who first took office in 1991, cites her experience as county clerk and her efforts to make sure residents are able to exercise their right to vote as reasons voters should return her to the post in 2007.

"I have striven through all the years that I've been here to encourage voter participation and make it easy and convenient for people to vote," she said.

During her four terms in office, Swensen has implemented several voter outreach programs, such as taking registration efforts to high schools and senior centers in the county.

"I want to continue those efforts," she said. "I've worked to take registration efforts out of the office and make sure that everyone who wants to participate has an easy and accessible opportunity to get information and register to vote."

Dickson praises Swensen for many of those voter-registration programs but says the incumbent clerk "falls short in helping people actually get to the polls."

As an example, Dickson cited Sept. 14 letters to voters in 350 precincts about possible changes to their polling locations for the upcoming election. The notices were given too close to the election, she said.

Dickson served as secretary to the Salt Lake County Republican Party from 2001-03. During that time and in the years since, Dickson said, she has struggled to get information on precinct boundaries from the clerk's office to organize community caucuses.

"It was like pulling teeth," she said, adding that on more than one occasion she observed requests from Democrats getting priority treatment. "That was my first indication that it wasn't a level playing field. If you stir my sense of fairness, that's really all it takes to get me driven."

Bonsall, a longtime Libertarian and retired manager with the Federal Aviation Administration, says he believes the county would be better off if neither Republicans nor Democrats occupied the office that oversees elections.

"I think any citizen would like to see someone in (the clerk's office) who's not a Democrat or a Republican," he said. "I think a person like that could bring a nonpartisan approach to the position."