Election Day — This may take awhile

Surprisingly high turnout for early voting may herald a future of pre-emptive strikes for candidates, but it probably will not mean shorter lines this Election Day.

Deseret Morning News graphic Electronic voting Requires Adobe Acrobat.

As of late Monday, an estimated 74,000 people voted statewide during the two-week early voting period and by absentee ballots, a number that could approach 20 percent of the total ballots cast, said Joe Demma, chief of staff for Lt. Gov. Gary Herbert, who oversees elections. That amount far exceeded their expectations of about 5 percent turnout for early voting.

Both Herbert's office and many county clerks pushed early voting, including a $1 million advertising campaign paid for by the state that was memorable for Herbert's decorative pajamas in one ad. A big motivation for that push was concern that the new electronic voting machines would slow voters and cause longer lines — a concern borne out during early voting, when voters were taking almost twice as long to cast their ballots.

The turnout comes close to estimates from a Deseret Morning News/KSL-TV poll conducted by Dan Jones & Associates, in which 28 percent of the surveyed voters either planned to or had voted early. The survey of 1,233 voters, conducted between Oct. 26 and Nov. 2, had a margin of error of 2.8 percent.

In an interview Monday, Jones said those numbers can be misleading, since people often plan to vote and never actually do. But the early-voting numbers were significant enough that Jones' team has been conducting exit interviews in Salt Lake County with voters who cast their ballots during the preceding two weeks.

"Their vote counts just as much as a vote cast on Tuesday," he said.

Although Jones will not tabulate any exit polls until the after voting ends today at 8 p.m., Jones did say that the early voters seemed to include more senior citizens. For the most part, very few of them seemed to have problems with the new electronic-voting machines, county officials said.

Despite the popularity of early voting, voters may still want to plan on lines today, especially if they are voting after 5 p.m. The state elections office and country clerks urge voters to get to the polls during the midday hours, when fewer people vote.

Polls are open today from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. Any voter who is in line by 8 p.m., no matter how long the wait, will be allowed to vote.

The early voting added a twist to political campaigns, some of which took steps to reach voters before the first day of early voting. While no-excuse absentee voting has been permitted since 2002 and gave voters the option to cast their ballots before the traditional Election Day, it was not as heavily used as the early voting option.