Voters in those precincts will have to mail in absentee ballots - an idea that is meeting resistance in some towns.

Emery County, which held a public meeting this week in the town of Emery, learned that the community's 259 voters have little enthusiasm for trusting their ballots to a mailbox.

"They were not in favor of it," said County Clerk Brenda Dugmore. "We have not made any decisions. Other counties are exploring the option and [Emery County] commissioners haven't decided yet."

Emery County is hoping that eliminating two polling places - Emery and Clawson - will save money on training and on transporting voting machines. In Clawson, which will have a public meeting for its 138 voters tonight, going to vote-by-mail would bring costs down from $500 to $200.

"We only have one precinct here for the whole town and everyone I've talked to is very upset about it," said Clawson resident Bruce Roundy, who fears his ballot will no longer be secret, despite election officials' assurances that absentee votes are secure. "If you have mail-in ballots, how can you be sure it's anonymous?"

Under Utah election law, county clerks can switch to vote-by-mail in precincts that have 500 or fewer voters.

Because it's a county-by-county decision, the state Elections Office does not know yet how many precincts and voters statewide will be affected, said elections assistant Stephen MacDonald.

Meanwhile, Salt Lake County is going in the other direction, said County Clerk Sherrie Swensen.

The county had 35 vote-by-mail districts that were organized because redistricting in 2002 created voter pockets, some with as few as 50 voters, with "odd ballot configurations," she said.

But with electronic machines that can keep several ballots in computer memory, those voters now can go to centralized polling places. About 3,000 voters will return to the polls - unless they choose to remain mail-in voters.

"Some people love it," Swensen said.

Only the community of Brighton, high in the Wasatch Mountains, will remain vote-by-mail because of the distance to deliver the vote, Swensen said. "Poll workers pleaded with us to keep it vote-by-mail. You can imagine driving down the canyon in November."

On the other hand, Millard County will make 11 precincts vote by mail to reduce the expense and problems related to training of poll workers for Utah's first electronic balloting.

"We felt we could handle it better if we reduced the number of polling places," said County Clerk Norma Brunson. "I have had complaints, not a large number."

But the issue apparently is generating heat in county seats statewide. Brunson said she telephoned county clerks around the state to find out if and how they were handling switching to vote-by-mail.

But she refused to share the names of those counties.

"I'm not spilling the beans on those county clerks," she said. "We are not taking any rights from anybody. They are going to cast a real vote - it's just going to be an absentee ballot."

gwarchol@sltrib.com