Early voting not likely to be adopted in Utah

Utah legislators are considering whether to adopt an early voting process here.

A number of other states currently allow registered voters to cast ballots before the regular Election Day.

Where it's been tried, citizens like it and voter turnout has increased, officials say. Nevada has early voting where citizens can cast ballots for up to 10 days before Election Day, including weekends, at designated gathering areas, like malls or government offices.

Utah, along with most other states, has had a form of early voting for years — absentee balloting.

But in Utah absentee balloting is a cumbersome process. For example, to get an absentee ballot you have to declare that you won't be around on Election Day itself, that you will be out of state, out of your voting precinct and so on.

It's likely some people who today are absentee balloting are not out of the state or even out of their voting precinct on Election Day. They just say they will be so they don't have to stand in the long lines that are seen at some overcrowded polling places.

In any case, Lt. Gov. Olene Walker, the state's official election officer, is in a pickle.

Following the voting fiasco in Florida in 2000 — you remember that the U.S. Supreme Court had to rule that George W. Bush was elected president because of those problems — Congress passed a law that says, among other things, states have to move to electronic voting by 2006. No more dangling chads on punch-card ballots.

That means some kind of computerized casting of ballots. And that probably means some kind of touch-screen video voting, with a hard-copy backup that election judges can download to recheck each machine's accuracy.

Such machines are now costing between $2,500 and $3,000 each, depending on the manufacturer, says Amy Naccarato, state elections director.

Congress is providing each state money for the new machines, based on voting age population. Utah should get $28 million in total; $8.8 million has already arrived.

At current funding, however, the state won't be able to buy enough new machines to replace all the old punch-card machines used by most Utah counties (a few counties are already using electronic voting).

That means, says Walker, that in some counties, like highly urban Wasatch Front areas, there could be long lines on Election Day unless counties themselves cough up more cash, or legislators spend state money, or the way we vote changes.