Estimated read time: 4-5 minutes
- Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson calls for election "changes" after multiple issues in Utah County on Tuesday.
- Voting delays were caused by a paper shortage, printer problems and unexpected voter turnout, prompting emergency measures.
- State officials also defended their decision to delay announcing election results until everyone voted.
SALT LAKE CITY — Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson said Wednesday that she believes some reform is needed in the Election Day process after multiple voting issues on Tuesday — primarily in Utah County — created delays and emergency solutions, including a flight to Arizona for more ballot paper.
"There, for sure, will be some changes that will be made, absolutely," she told reporters at a briefing at the Utah Capitol on Wednesday.
Initial Utah polling results were released shortly after 10 p.m. Tuesday, two hours after polls closed. Henderson — the state's top election official — had instructed counties to hold off on releasing preliminary numbers until everyone in line at 8 p.m. had voted.
Some of the delays were attributed to voter turnout, but paper and printer issues also snarled lines in Utah County.
Aaron Davidson, the county's election clerk, said the polling locations at Highland and Pleasant Grove both experienced printer trouble caused by older printers running out of toner on Tuesday evening. Printer issues also held up voting lines in Payson and Orem.
Election officials also had to print thousands of emergency ballots at the Utah County Polling Processing Center in Provo, which were brought to the two polling locations that were affected.
Henderson explained Utah County had about 10,000 ballots ready for Election Day but the county "burned through about half of those by midmorning." There wasn't enough extra paper with the correct size and material across the state to send to Utah County, either.
The situation appeared bleak enough that the state arranged a plane that flew to Arizona on Tuesday to pick up the correct type of paper, while it also helped the county find a print shop to cut the proper paper material it did have down to the right size, she said.
"It turns out (Davidson) didn't need (the paper from Arizona), but we wouldn't have known that until it was far too late to mitigate that problem," she said.
Davidson said that he wasn't aware of anyone being turned away from voting despite the hiccups. He added that polling locations received thousands more voters than anticipated, creating the emergency shortage.
"It was higher than expected. It was just like a tsunami of voters that came out," he said on Wednesday, noting that long lines also formed across other parts of the state.
He said the long lines elsewhere showed that other counties weren't prepared for the turnout.
Henderson agreed that there was a "high number of provisional or same-day voters," which she said could have been tied to students, first-time voters and population growth since the last presidential election. However, she doesn't believe total turnout was abnormal for a presidential election.
At 43.8%, Utah County had the lowest percentage of early voting or mail-in ballots returned among the state's 29 counties entering Election Day. It's unclear if that factored into the in-person turnout situation.
"There's a lot of reasons and we'll be digging into that and seeing why we had so many in-person lines," she said.
The lieutenant governor commended Utah County voters for sticking out the delays and the county's poll workers for enduring the issues. She chastised Davidson instead for "some lack of planning" that she believes led to the delays.
While her office collects and distributes election results, Henderson said county clerks are responsible for figuring out how elections are handled in their respective counties. This includes all the voting logistics, ranging from polling locations to ballot paper and printer ink.
Her office regularly reviews election processes after every election. What happened in Utah County will likely be near the top of the next one.
"We'll be addressing that moving forward," she said.
Davidson, on the other hand, said he thinks it's unfair to pin issues "solely" on Utah County because of the long lines elsewhere.
It wasn't immediately clear how much the Arizona flight cost, but Gov. Spencer Cox said it likely cost a few thousand dollars. State officials will review whether they believe Utah County should be on the hook for the cost.
Both he and Henderson also defended their decision to withhold election results until late Tuesday.
The governor said he believes releasing information while people were still in line would have created voter intimidation or interference. It's why he disagreed with major news outlets that declared Donald Trump and John Curtis as the winners of the state's presidential and senate races while people were still in line.
The only other major incident happened in Salt Lake County. Counting was halted for about an hour Tuesday afternoon after a poll worker found a white substance on a ballot being processed.
While the powder turned out to be harmless, Henderson added Wednesday that the state is investigating the incident to make sure the case wasn't malicious in any way.
"If that's an attempt to intimidate or harass or delay or disrupt administering the election — that's not acceptable," she said.
Contributing: Jacob Freeman, Dan Rascon and Brian Carlson
