This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2016, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
Voters in Cedar City faced lines that would take nearly three hours to wend through the city's only polling station Tuesday.
Cedar City resident Greg Mauger showed up at the Cedar City council chambers at 10 a.m., with his wife and 2-week-old daughter, and found the line extending out the door. They waited three hours, watching many abandon their plans to cast ballots.
"I saw at least 10 to 15 people [leave] and then stopped paying attention," Mauger said. "We were talking with one lady for a while; she waited probably an hour and 20 minutes. She finally gave up. Voting is an extremely important thing ... but people have to work, people have lives."
At one point, the line passed through a parking garage, leading to complaints from parents that children were being exposed to car fumes, Mauger said. The crowd grew angry, he said, with several people shouting accusations of "voter suppression" at an election worker.
Jon Whittaker, the Iron County clerk, said his office was working to add staff and voting machines Tuesday afternoon at the chamber offices, at 10 N. Main St.
"We've had a tremendous turnout in Cedar City," Whittaker said.
Iron County reduced the number of polling locations as the county — along with 20 other of Utah's 29 counties — shifted to voting by mail. Many people, though, chose not to use the mail-in system, or prefer the tradition of voting in person.
According to preliminary figures from the Utah lieutenant governor's office, as of Monday afternoon, 9,647 mail-in ballots from Iron County were processed. That's 41.8 percent of the 23,085 active registered voters in the county.
Mauger said paper ballots apparently weren't sent to all voters; he received one, but his wife didn't. He said he joined her at the polls Tuesday so she wouldn't have to care for their nursing newborn baby by herself.
When Mauger's family reached the front of the line, he saw that at least a third of the machines weren't in use, leaving room for about a half-dozen voters at a time. Even if ballots had reached every voter, Mauger said, he questions whether a single voting location with just a few machines could serve all Election Day voters in a city of 29,000.
"The last time they had elections, they had polling places all around the area. Then they decided to close everything," he said. "I just scratch my head."