Salt Lake, Utah Counties to Finalize Primary Election Results

None by KCPW

Recount Likely in House District 42

(KCPW News) Elections officials in Salt Lake and Utah Counties will meet Tuesday to finalize primary election results. The board of canvassers in both counties will count absentee and provisional ballots and certify the election results.

"Basically it's pretty much a procedural thing to get the results certified and if a race is closer than one vote per precint, candidates have a week to request a recount in writing," explains Salt Lake County Clerk Sherrie Swensen.

She says tomorrow's meeting with the board of canvassers - comprised of the entire Salt Lake County Council - may entail a bit more debate, given the new voting equipment and some uncertainty over recount procedures. Councilman Joe Hatch says that's definitely on his mind.

"We have one race that may require a recount and if it does, how will that be done and who will administer it under what rules? I intend to ask questions about that," says Hatch.

That race is House District 42 in which challenger Jim Bird is currently 24 votes ahead of incumbent Representative Peggy Wallace. If after the canvass that number is 27 or less, either candidate can request a recount. Wallace says she will.

State elections officials are racing to establish recount procedures, but for the time being, Swensen says Salt Lake County will re-run the memory cards from the electronic voting machines and the optical scan ballots. No plans are in place to manually count the paper printouts from voting machines.

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