If the turnout for early voting is any indication, the overall voter turnout for the 2012 Utah general election could be high. Mark Thomas, Director of Elections in the Utah Lieutenant Governor’s Office, says he anticipates about 40% of people who intend to vote did so early.
"The numbers that have been reported in from the county clerks show 378,000 have voted either by mail or at the early voting locations so far. This number could certainly increase in the days after Election Day as they count more of those absentee ballots that came in before Election Day."
Thomas says that would mean an increase of about 3% over the 2008 Presidential Election. He says overall turnout for recent Presidential Elections has averaged about 60%, but this year overall turnout could reach as high as 75% - 80%.
"I would think that for this election that were going to have at least 950,000 people vote. That’s the bottom end. We could get up to anywhere between 980,000 to even close to a million."
Thomas says 73% of registered voters visited the booth for the 2004 presidential election.
Election day voting is available to Utahns Tuesday until 8:00 p.m.
