Utah’s Presidential Primary Election is Tuesday, March 3. If mailing in your ballot, it must be postmarked by March 2. If you miss the post mark date, ballots can be deposited in a drop box up until 8 pm on March 3.
The political party one affiliates with, in Utah, determines which ballot you receive from the clerk’s office. Republicans have a closed primary election which means unless you’re a registered Republican, you can’t vote in a Republican primary. Democrats in Utah have an open primary allowing everyone to vote on the Democrat ballot. But, if you’re a non-affiliated voter, you won’t get a primary ballot at all unless you directed the clerk’s office to send one.
Summit County Clerk Kent Jones says his office mailed out over 16,000 ballots. If for some reason, a ballot wasn’t received, registered voters can still vote in person on election day.
“They want to vote they can go on election day and the same rules apply. If they will look him up, see how their registered and if they are registered Republican, they can choose either Republican or Democrat ballot by requesting it. If they're unaffiliated then they would have to affiliate to get the Republican ballot, but they could get a Democrat ballot by just requesting it.”
If a registered Republican has not sent in their Republican Primary ballot and wants to vote on the Democrat ballot, they can go to the polling station and request to vote Democrat.
Jones believes between 5,000 and 6,000 unaffiliated voters requested ballots from his office.
“We have 7,000 registered Democrat, 9,300 registered Republicans, approximately 12,000 registered as unaffiliated, not affiliated with any party. I do think that many counties have a lot of unaffiliated voters, I think probably the majority.”
Jones says there is no chance for election interference because the election process in Utah does not ever connect with on-line or internet platforms.
“As far as our programming, all our election equipment, everything that we do, as far as the voting, nothing's ever been connected to the Internet. Nothing's ever been online. So, all of that information is programmed and done through thumb drive copy and encryption.”
Mail in ballots must be post marked by March 2nd. If voting in person, voting centers are open Tuesday, March 3 from 7 AM to 8PM. If using a drop box to submit a mail in ballot, they can be brought to a drop box location up until 8 PM on March 3 which is the same polls close. A linkto same day voting locations and drop box locations can be found here.
