Polls swamped by heavy turnout

PROVO — A good chunk of voters in Utah County couldn't wait to cast their ballot for Mitt Romney in Tuesday's presidential primary, but wait they did because of an admittedly poor decision by county elections officials to close about half of the normal polling places.

Super Tuesday was super frustrating for voters who stood in long lines because a heavy turnout swamped the remaining polling locations.

The closures also confused many voters. Some went to as many as three or four polling places before finding the right one.

The wait at the Brigham Young University Conference Center was an hour or more for much of the day, and frustration boiled over for some when they learned county leaders mistakenly anticipated a low turnout and consolidated the number of voting locations to 59 from the normal 109.

"I can't believe that for something as major as this they made it more difficult," said Catherine Taylor, a BYU faculty member who showed up to vote in the early afternoon and left when she learned about the long wait.

"I have kids at home," she said. "I don't have time for this right now. For a presidential primary, whoever made this decision was misinformed."

Taylor said she would return later when she squared away her other obligations.

Utah County Clerk/Auditor Bryan Thompson and Elections Coordinator Sandy Hoffman both apologized. "Apparently my crystal ball wasn't working," Hoffman said.

The decision was based on the 2000 Utah primary, which had a 14 percent turnout. Hoffman predicted a 20 percent turnout this time but realized soon after the polls opened that she'd underestimated the interest among Utahns.

Lines were relatively short in Salt Lake County, where County Clerk Sherrie Swensen took the opposite tack and added 111 polling places for a total of 330.

"I'm glad we did because it takes longer for people to check in," Swensen said. "I just didn't want to have a re-occurrence of what happened in November" when heavy interest in the voucher referendum drew a 46 percent turnout.

Davis County polling stations were busy, too, but voters generally waited about 10 minutes to vote during most of the day. Waits of more than 20 minutes were reported at the Davis County Library's Bountiful branch and elsewhere.

Davis County Clerk/Auditor Steve Rawlings said that as of 5 p.m., his poll workers were seeing a "pretty good" turnout in the 25 voting locations across Davis County.

During planning for the Western States Presidential Primary, Rawlings' office planned for a 35 percent voter turnout. In the last presidential primary, turnout was about 10 percent in Davis County, Rawlings said.