Draper's city boundaries straddle two counties - Salt Lake and Utah - and 500 potential voters on the Utah County side are mailing their ballots. Vote totals from the Salt Lake County side of the city will be known by tonight.

And while some candidates are OK with waiting for the rest, others fear those city residents in Utah County could change that outcome.

The city sent mail-in ballots to all its Utah County residents. But the postmark deadline on those votes was Monday, and that means Draper might not even receive the rest of the mail-in ballots until later this week.

"We have [some of] the votes; we just haven't counted them at this point. We haven't decided how to do that," said City Recorder Kathy Montoya. "But we'll have results available on the county Web site as soon as we have them."

Montoya said the city has received "quite a few more" early-election ballots so far than it did in 2005, though she didn't have an exact count by Monday afternoon.

Incumbent Bill Colbert isn't particularly concerned. He compared waiting for the mail-in votes to the normal wait for absentee and provisional ballots.

And candidates Steve Orgill, Troy Tait and Paul Tonks were even less worried. They'll just wait to see what happens.

"If people were going to vote for [me] they will, whether it's today, yesterday or tomorrow," Tait said. "I don't see it as an advantage for anyone."

But Troy Walker and several other council candidates disagree.

Walker's upset. "I guarantee it will change [Tuesday's] outcome - I don't think there's any question," he said Monday.

Walker said mailing ballots to the SunCrest residents in Utah County could give candidates who live on that hillside development an unfair advantage.

"If you're going to mail to them, I think you ought to do it for everyone," Walker said. "I don't see why they can't come down off the hill to vote."

Candidate Alan Summerhays agreed, saying turnout is likely to be high for those in SunCrest, since they just have to go to the mailbox to vote.

John Lucky said a late change in results could cost people if they think they have made it through the primary and continue campaigning for a few extra days when they're really out of the race.

Candidate Bart Barker said he could see that happening.

"With 13 candidates running, conceivably you could have one candidate with 100 votes make it through the primary," he said. "If you make it through based on Tuesday's results, you might cheer. But a week later, you might have to take it back."

sgehrke@sltrib.com