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Candidate Filing For Utah Municipal Races Now Open

SLCo Clerk

Candidate filing began Thursday for municipal races in Salt Lake and across Utah. 

In Salt Lake County, there are 17 cities and five metro townships — all of which will hold municipal elections this November. Candidates have from now until June 7 to head to their local city hall to file for open seats. 

For those in the five newly formed townships of Magna, Kearns, Emigration Canyon, Copperton and White City, candidates can file at the Salt Lake County Clerk’s office, which administers those races.

Salt Lake County Clerk Sherrie Swenson said it may be an off-cycle year, but theses council and mayoral races are just as critical.  

“They determine police protection, snow removal, your budgets for your cities, so it’s important for people to get registered to vote...and make sure you cast your ballot,” she said.

Although the townships held elections last year after their formation, some council seats will be up again in order to get those seats into Utah’s odd-year municipal cycle.

This year’s election will be a little trickier, said Swensen, because it will coincide with the special election to replace Rep. Jason Chaffetz in the 3rd Congressional District.

Gov. Gary Herbert intentionally set the date to align with municipal races, which means Swensen will be in charge of getting ballots printed with both local candidates and congressional candidates for voters of the 3rd district — about 105,000 people. 

“It makes it very interesting, but for the voters it will be quite seamless,” she said. “If the race pertains to them, the partisan primary will appear on the ballot with the nonpartisan offices.”

Swensen said they’re already anticipating a higher turnout as a result of the special election and plan to have early voting as well as up to 50 polling locations for the general election on November 7.

Julia joined KUER in 2016 after a year reporting at the NPR member station in Reno, Nev. During her stint, she covered battleground politics, school overcrowding, and any story that would take her to the crystal blue shores of Lake Tahoe. Her work earned her two regional Edward R. Murrow awards. Originally from the mountains of Western North Carolina, Julia graduated from UNC-Chapel Hill in 2008 with a degree in journalism. She’s worked as both a print and radio reporter in several states and several countries — from the 2008 Beijing Olympics to Dakar, Senegal. Her curiosity about the American West led her to take a spontaneous, one-way road trip to the Great Basin, where she intends to continue preaching the gospel of community journalism, public radio and podcasting. In her spare time, you’ll find her hanging with her beagle Bodhi, taking pictures of her food and watching Patrick Swayze movies.
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