From Deseret News archives:
S.L. man is accused of voting twice in '06
Ernest Ray Agutter, 69, was charged Wednesday in Salt Lake City's 3rd District Court with prohibited voting activity, a third-degree felony. Prosecutors said Agutter voted twice in the November 2006 general election.
According to an affidavit filed with the charges, Agutter was an early voter on Nov. 3 and went to the Northwest Recreation Center in Salt Lake County.
"On Election Day ... the defendant voted a second time at his official voting precinct, No. 2604, Bonneville Elementary in Salt Lake County," district attorney's investigator Cortney Nelson wrote.
Because of the transition to touch screen electronic voting, early voting was instituted at select precincts across the state. In some cases, precincts on Election Day did not have lists of those who had already voted.
Salt Lake County Clerk Sherrie Swenson said Agutter boasted about voting twice.
In the criminal complaint, an election judge claims that after voting, Agutter walked up to her and other poll workers and notified them he had voted twice. After checking the official register, poll workers learned he had already participated in early voting.
"One of the poll workers inadvertently missed the indication and the defendant was allowed to receive a second ballot upon which he voted electronically," Nelson wrote.
No one answered the phone at Agutter's Salt Lake home on Wednesday evening.
Swenson said the allegations of double voting have nothing to do with the new electronic voting machines.
"It doesn't prohibit anyone from voting twice. You go in and sign the register," she said Wednesday.
After every election, Swenson said the clerk's office reviews the voter rolls. In the past, they have had other cases of people voting twice.
"We've had situations where they have, for whatever reason, come up twice on a voter history," she said. "We turn it over to the D.A."
E-mail: bwinslow@desnews.com
