Vouchers: Issue should boost turnout

Political impacts of highly contested races often play themselves out as wheels within wheels — turn one wheel slightly and other gears whirl by.

In Tuesday's election, many areas of Utah will likely see a larger voter turnout for their municipal and local ballot propositions because the private school voucher Referendum No. 1 is on the ballot.

But in a few areas such as Salt Lake City, where a competitive mayor's race is turning out the vote, vouchers may not be the driving force getting residents to the polls.

State Rep. Greg Hughes says one reason he and GOP legislative leaders decided to form their own political-issue committee (PIC) to push for pro-voucher votes is that they feared the Salt Lake mayor's race will naturally bring out extra anti-voucher voters.

Hughes, R-Draper, says leaders centered their "town meetings" in Utah and Washington counties — where more residents favor vouchers — because they fear that a big voter turnout in more liberal Salt Lake City would skew the voucher vote against the Legislature's plan to give between $500 to $3,000 per child in tuition breaks if the child goes to a qualified private school.

"In a general election (even-numbered) year, you might get 1 million voters in Utah," says Hughes. "But this off-year election, you might get only 250,000 or so voters." That's one reason that the GOP legislative leaders' PIC — the Informed Voter Project — sent out a huge 250,000-piece, pro-voucher mailer this weekend.

"We want to offset" the large, anti-voucher vote coming in Salt Lake City with a higher-than-average voter turnout in more conservative parts of the state — areas where the local mayoral and council races may not be interesting enough to turn out voters on their own, says Hughes.

Todd Taylor, executive director of the Utah Democratic Party and a longtime political-watcher in Utah, says that voter turnout Tuesday may be better than a normal off-year election, "but not significantly so."

Having vouchers on the ballot will probably increase voter participation. But polling over the past several months "has been very consistent" on the voucher issue, with residents not swinging one way or the other much, he says.

A new Dan Jones & Associates poll for the Deseret Morning News and KSL-TV — released Friday night — shows that vouchers are failing across the state, with 57 percent against them, 35 percent for them.