Reader comments
Voter turnout is down

What an absolute shame. Not that Obama stood a chance here, but just because McCain was an uninspiring candidate doesn't mean you shouldn't vote at all in what is probably the most important election of the last 30 years.

Take a Republican candidate that the party in general and Utah in particular is decidedly unexcited about and add a Democratic candidate expected to win by perhaps a landslide and you get an unmotivated Utah electorate.

I applaud them for not feeling it necessary to cast the obligatory Republican ballot for McCain. I semi-bucked the trend in Florida as this Republican did turn out, albeit not to vote for McCain. I didn't feel prompted to vote-against Obama either, but the GOP cannot expect to take our votes for granted when they lay up Democrat Lites like McCain.

Maybe because Utah has realized that the elections nationwide and in this state are rigged.

There are no more 'good' men running for office like Hyrum Smith counseled us to elect.

Obama is a socialist. McCain is the most unprincipled man ever to seek office.

Huntsman is a socialist. Springmeyer was not much better. Schanze lacks maturity.

The State Treasurer is about as big of a scumbag this state has ever seen.


It now costs over 1 billion dollars to win the Presidency. It is closed to all good men. Now we will only have bad men run for office since that is who the Bankers support.

Where do we the voters have to turn when two all powerful parties control the entire electoral process? And the people are caught up bickering amongst each other merely because they have different party affiliation. Rather than rising up and fixing a broken system.

America has stopped being America and people have begun to realize there vote doesn't matter. It is only the illusion of freedom.

"No one is as hopelessly enslaved as the person who thinks he's free."...Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

McLame. Liberals finally got something right.

Corporate greed, deregulation, inferior products, outsourcing of jobs, NAFTA, destroying the living wage and construction unions with immigrants, deregulated health care for the few, Enron, Tom Delay, Iraq, Failure to secure Bin Laden, low wages, lack of affordable higher education, loss of good lifetime jobs with benefits, golden parachutes, destruction of the middle working class, deteriorated infrastructures, increased crimes, cuts to peace office funding, huge massive deficit spending, lack of consideration for our fellow citizens, highest incarceration rates in the world, highest infant mortality rate in developed nations, 19th rated in industrialized health care, 39th in the world, partisan obstructionism, lack of consideration of others who are different, hatred,intolerance. Can we take any more of the republican ways and philosophies? The people have had enough, we want change!!! Maybe a few of the people of Utah afre awakening to the scandalous neocons.

Please!! It's really simple. It Utah why vote when elections are already determined?

Utah has no place in politics considering so many didn't vote.

Mormons in Utah were so desperate for a Mormon candidate that when Romney flamed out, they were demoralized.

Even though I was not obliged to vote, I did indeed exercise my right and duty to vote. Have not missed an election since I turned 18...even when I had to get absentee ballots and vote from overseas. Too many of my ancestors were not given the opportunity to cast a ballot. Apathy is not an excuse. Of course, people have the right not to vote, but then, I say, you don't have a "right" to complain about who gets elected.:-)

Rigged has it right except for his description of the state treasurer. Let's keep an eye on our bond rating over the next couple years, especially compared to other states' ratings. Sorry if you were a Walker fan.

Dems got all excited because BO had as large a percentage of Utah votes as any dem has received since the dems embraced abortion. Had voter turnout in Utah been normal, many more would have vote for McLame and BO's percentage would have been much less.

There is one simple reason voter turnout was low. Few Utahn's had much interest in voting for Obama, and there was little enthusiasm for McCain. Plus, no one was going to defeat the Governor, and the house seats were also very secure. The only real interest being Jason Chaffetz and his campaign.

I certainly would not draw and grand conclusions from this low voter turnout. Give Obama four years in office, have a Republican presidential candidate run who generates some excitement--and you'll see a high voter turnout.

Obviously some of the sheep were asleep or in a different field when the time to vote came. I can understand not voting in Utah if you had half a mind and knew the issues and powers that be behind the scenes. You would suffer from such great depression that you would have to move out of state to regain your balance.

No surprise here: some of the sheep forgot to go vote.

The article cited several good explanations for low voter turnout in Utah

- young population
- non-competitive races
- uninspiring Republican presidential candidate

The last explanation, "lax ethics laws", is just the Deseret News pushing its pet complaint against the legislature. Even if Utah's ethics laws are lax and need reform, this didn't cause Utah's voter turnout to be lower than the rest of the country. If people think Utah politicians are corrupt, they need to live in Illinois, New York, Texas, and Louisiana to find out what corrupt politicians are really like.

Utah's voting turnout was low, many potential Utah voters were in California helping with the Prop 8 campaign. It worked, so I guess it was worth it.

I voted despite the fact that I didn't like either presidential candidate and didn't feel my vote would matter. I voted because it maintains my right to express my opinion of the actions these politician take.

The political world is one of corruption and greed where people participate strictly for themselves and not because they care about the country. The same is true and is already being demonstrated by our President-elect. It's the same old garbage from the other side of the fence.

I wish there could be someone rise up who would really give me something to believe in but I do not believe in those we have currently, at any level.

UtahR voters don't vote because they are Mitt-less.

I get sick of hearing that it's my duty to vote. No, it's not. When it becomes absolutely clear that an election is going to be a landslide, my vote means nothing. And not voting does not mean that I lose my right to criticize the actions of the winners. These are facts. I also reserve the right not to vote for people whose political stands I cannot support. I didn't appreciate McCain's pushing of McCain-Feingold, which put too much power in the hands of the liberal press, and I didn't like his ridiculous pathway to citizenship method of dealing with immigration reform, or his Gang of 14 work. I don't want a maverick who would be out there, working against principles I support. And I couldn't vote for Obama, who is for bigger government, higher taxes on producers and for policies that lead us closer to socialism. I couldn't vote for Huntsman, who has sided with environmental extremists on the man-caused global warming myth. But I couldn't vote for his opponent, either. I chose to vote, marking my ballot with alternative candidates who had no chance to win, except for burning fossil fuel to delay another ice age!

A predominant party is usually infiltrated by the opposing party. That�s the case here in Utah. Voters who think their state is in good, conservative hands should think again and get involved.

The Salt Lake County Republican Party is an example. A Democrat posing as a Republican sat next to me at the convention and then delivered my message to her Democratic friend in the legislature. A Reaganesque education resolution was presented and soundly defeated. What?

We have a liberal Governor proposing a state bailout, globalist environmentalism, support for McCain over Romney, and a defender of liberal public school curricula.

Next to California, Utah had the lowest percentage of support for a marriage amendment of all the states that have passed those measures, thanks to Doug Wright and our otherwise fairly decent attorney general.

Some of the Republicans in our State Legislature vote like Democrats. The strongest influence in the State Legislature is the Utah Education Association, a liberal teachers union, controlling about 50% of the legislature.

My precinct shows 150 registered Republicans, 140 registered Democrats, and 545 unaffiliated. It's that 545 that we must activate and who mistakenly think all's well.

Cherilyn Bacon Eagar

To see what the percentages would have been had the Bush-Wacker & and Slick Dick been on the ballot for re-election. I would bet alot that had that been the case Utah would have yurned out in much larger numbers to re-elect the GREEDY LIARS.