Salt Lake County election officials will start shipping out general election ballots next week in what could be a record year for voting.
Local voter rolls have swelled to more than 479,000 active registered voters so far. Salt Lake County Clerk Sherrie Swensen says that’s a big increase from the last presidential election.
“On election day in 2012, we had just over 444,000 active registered voters, and so that’s an increase of over 35,000 voters since 2012,” says Swensen. “And we’re not even to election day yet. This number will continue to grow.”
Swensen says the uptick points to the potential for record turnout this year as Utahns are paying close attention to the presidential candidates at the top of the ticket. Statewide, voter registration is up about 6 percent over the same period in 2012.
“Definitely there’s an increase in population, but we’ve already seen enthusiasm in the political party caucuses in March,” she says. “We received thousands of forms as a result of that.”
This is the first general election in which voting by mail will be an option to all active voters in the county, making it even easier to vote. Twenty-one of Utah’s 29 counties are participating in vote-by-mail this cycle.
Tuesday is also the last day to register to vote by mail. But Swensen says there is still plenty of time to register online or in person at the clerk’s office before the November 1 deadline.