Fri. Nov 8th, 2024

Voters wait in lines lining the halls of the Utah County Health and Justice Building on Tuesday, Nov. 5, 2024. (Photo by Nathan Beitler for Utah News Dispatch)

Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson on Tuesday said she did not want to place personal blame on Utah County Clerk Aaron Davidson for election night problems that led to voters waiting hours at some polling locations Tuesday night. 

“I have no desire to pile onto Clerk Davidson,” Henderson told Utah News Dispatch in an interview Wednesday, after a post-election scrum at the Governor’s Office in the Utah Capitol in Salt Lake City. 

“I want nothing more than for him to be the best clerk in Utah. That’s what I hope for. And my office is prepared to help him do that, if that’s what he wants to do. He has a job to do. I think he got caught flat-footed,” Henderson said. “But people who make mistakes and then are able to look internally and take accountability for their actions … and make changes for the better, that’s character. That’s just a good person. I hope that that’s what Aaron does.” 

Henderson, however, also said a “lack of planning” that led to long lines and other issues in Utah County, in particular, did factor into why the state’s election night results were posted more than two hours after polls closed at 8 p.m. 

Other counties did see long voter lines in some polling locations, but problems were more widespread and chaotic in Utah County, a Republican stronghold and Utah’s second-most populated county. 

Leading up to the election, Davidson had discouraged voting by mail and instead encouraged voters to use ballot drop boxes or vote in person on Election Day. Henderson said more people showed up in person to vote than expected, including many “provisional” voters, or those not already registered to vote and needing to sign up for same-day voter registration. 

Henderson’s office had warned on Monday of the possibility that the state’s election night results could be delayed if there were long lines, because state election officials had decided not to post results until the last voter who got in line by the 8 p.m. cut off had the opportunity to vote. 

Pressed on whether the state should have posted results sooner regardless of people still waiting in line, Henderson told reporters she wouldn’t do anything different.

“It’s an unfortunate delay, but it’s an understandable one,” she said. “You want voters who are already in line to be able to cast their ballots without undue influence from results.” 

Election Day is here: Lt. Gov. warns long lines could delay Utah’s election night results

She also said clerks are ultimately responsible for planning the administration of their county’s elections.

 “They’re responsible for deciding how many vote centers to stand up. They’re responsible for deciding how much paper to stock. They’re responsible for deciding how much ink to have on hand,” Henderson said. “These are decisions that the state, that my office does not make. These are independently-elected county clerks, and it’s their responsibility to make sure that the voters in their county, no matter how many voters want to show up and vote, have that opportunity to do so.” 

However, state officials are on standby to assist if need be, and Utah County’s issues caused so much concern that Henderson said state officials took action. 

Concerned about a possible shortage of ballot paper in Utah County, Henderson said her office even sent a state plane to Arizona on Tuesday to retrieve more after Utah County reported it had used up half of its ballots for people voting in person in the early hours of Election Day. 

“We were told he had 10,000 ballots that (he) could use to print for people who showed up, and he burned through about half of those by mid-morning,” Henderson said, adding there weren’t extra ballots available throughout the state because other clerks had only stocked up for their own county elections’ needs. “So we were quite alarmed by that.” 

So Henderson said her office “sent a state plane to Phoenix to pick up more paper, because we had no idea if he would need it or not.” 

However, Utah County ended up not needing the extra paper, Henderson said, “but we wouldn’t have known that until it was far too late to mitigate that problem.” 

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“We’re planners, we’re problem solvers, and when we see that there’s a problem, we throw all of our resources at mitigating it,” Henderson said. 

When asked how much the state plane’s trip to Arizona cost the state, Henderson initially said she didn’t have an answer, before Utah Gov. Spencer Cox, who also attended Wednesday morning’s press conference, said he estimated “probably $4,000, something around there.” 

Asked whether Utah County will pay for at least some of the cost of that plane, Henderson said “we will figure that out later.” 

Voters wait in lines spilling out of the Utah County Health and Justice Building after the polls closed on Tuesday, Nov. 5, 2024. Voters who were in line as of 8 p.m. were allowed to cast their ballots. (Photo by Nathan Beitler for Utah News Dispatch)

Davidson did not immediately respond to requests for comment Tuesday night and Wednesday morning, but acknowledged to other media outlets that lack of planning and his encouragement of people to vote in person on Election Day likely contributed to Tuesday night’s problems. He told The Salt Lake Tribune he didn’t expect such massive in-person turnout, which led to ink and provisional envelope shortages at various locations throughout the county. 

“I’m going to get crucified on this,” he told the outlet. “But we just followed the process. That’s why there are emergency ballots.” 

It’s not the first time Utah County, even under past leadership, has been troubled by election night problems. In 2018, long lines and, in some cases, three-hour waits led to election night delays and muddled results — leading then-Gov. Gary Herbert to call Utah County the “epicenter of dysfunction.”

Davidson, who first took office as Utah County clerk in 2023, has also faced controversy and scrutiny for other reasons. 

Some lawmakers including Sen. Mike McKell, R-Spanish Fork, and Utah County Commissioner Amelia Powers Gardner have accused Davidson of playing politics with election information by tracking and revealing whether certain politicians voted by mail or did or did not pay for a postage stamp. McKell and Powers Gardner called for him to recuse himself from the election, which he refused, arguing voting methods aren’t classified as private information. 

Last month, Davidson also faced calls from state officials to improve his office’s election processes after a state review of the June primary found high signature rejection rates and other discrepancies that could have potentially allowed some 19 voters to cast their ballots in person without ID verification.

Utah County clerk’s vote method tracking amounts to ‘voter intimidation,’ commissioner says

Davidson, in an interview with Utah News Dispatch in September, generally accepted most of the state’s recommendations to improve his office’s election processes, saying he’s already acted on most of them — but he took issue with the assertion that his office’s signature verification was “too strict.”

Last month, Davidson also wrote a letter that echoed unsubstantiated claims questioning whether Cox legitimately qualified for the November ballot and suggesting that Henderson be criminally prosecuted. The letter led some supporters of Cox’s unsuccessful Republican challenger Rep. Phil Lyman to call for Henderson to be executed, The Salt Lake Tribune reported

Henderson dismissed Davidson’s letter as “nonsense” and told Utah News Dispatch on Wednesday that all attacks directed at her and her office this election cycle were a “campaign tactic.” 

“The accusations, the threats, the intimidation, the crying foul, the ‘heads I win, tails you cheated’ mentality, is a tactic,” Henderson said. “And it’s thankfully not an effective one, at least yet, in Utah. And hopefully it stays that way.” 

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