Voter turnout remains high this election cycle in Summit and Wasatch counties as votes continue to roll in through the week.
By Friday morning, Wasatch County had received 18,801 ballots with 92% received by mail — 15,387 ballots of those have been processed and released toward final results, putting turnout at 81%.
By Friday morning, Summit County had received a total of 26,813 ballots with 7,756 still to process as of Thursday at close — 15,851 ballots had been processed and counted toward the latest unofficial results.
In Summit County, there are 29,718 registered voters, putting turnout at 90% with still more to come.
“We will continue to receive more ballots by mail, but the number will continue to be lower as we get further from the election,” Summit County Clerk Evelyn Furse said.
As of Monday, Summit County had received 19,983 ballots by mail and in-person early voting. With voter registration over 29,000, over two-thirds of Summit County voters chose to vote early this year.
In Summit County, 610 voters showed up in person to vote by noon Tuesday. Summit County Clerk Evelyn Furse expected low in-person voting numbers overall.
“Usually, we have under 5% that like to vote in person,” said Furse.
By the close of the count on Tuesday, Summit County had received 23,466 ballots with 12,259 processed. In just two full days since, the clerk’s office has both received and processed over 3,000 ballots.
As of 3 p.m. on Tuesday, Wasatch County had received over 16,100 ballots, with 4,000 still to process. There are roughly 22,000 active, registered voters in the County, including day of registration. In the days since, Wasatch County had received 2000 additional ballots and processed 3000.
Both Wasatch and Summit County offices are counting ballots at a similar rate, where both have been able to process over 15,000 ballots in this election. The challenge for Summit is the volume they continue to receive, relative to Wasatch County. In the days since the election, Summit County has received almost 10,000 more ballots to process than Wasatch.
“We’re always going to process at least 35% more votes on a presidential election, it’s not surprising, but it is a challenge to plan for,” said Wasatch County Clerk-Auditor Joey D. Granger.
Voter turnout has consistently exceeded 90% over the past six years in Summit County, and Summit County Clerk Evelyn Furse expected no difference in this presidential election.
“I think it’s entirely possible that we’ll get up to 95%,” said Furse. “The biggest difference this year is just volume. There are so many ballots coming in.”
Appointed county clerk in 2021, this is her first presidential election in office.
Summit County exceeded the national voter turnout average by over 25% in the 2020 general election at 92.4%, when 26,440 ballots were counted out of 26,802 registered voters.
Since 2018, the United States has experienced an all-time high voter turnout. A record-breaking 66% of eligible voters participated in the 2020 general election, according to the PEW Research Center.
The Summit County office will continue to process ballots throughout the week until finished.
“We are starting off the day with the statewide turnout at 53%,” said Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson in an X post Tuesday morning. She said 96% of Utah early voters cast their ballots by mail, with only 37,050 coming in person out of the 952,157 ballots processed. Four years ago, Utah’s early voting turnout was slightly higher at 54.1%.
While Election Day in-person turnout is unpredictable and can increase ballot counts by hundreds of thousands, Utah had a lot to expect from registered voters this Election Day.
In 2020, 90.09% of Utah’s active, registered voters cast ballots, higher than any other election in the past 40 years, according to VoteUtah.gov.
In Wasatch County, 88.8% of registered voters participated in the 2020 general election with 17,919 ballots cast.
Election turnout has been historically high in the neighboring Wasatch Back counties compared to the national average, yet only 33.6% of registered Democrats and 49.56% of registered Republicans in Wasatch participated in the 2024 presidential primary election in June.
In Summit County, 38.7% of registered Democrats and 46.1% of registered Republicans voted in the presidential primary.
Across the two counties, voter turnout has superseded the national average by almost 30%. With registered voters maintaining an average of over 85% turnout in the past six years, the neighbors help Utah remain at the helm of voter turnout across the country.