Tuesday’s primary election for nonpartisan municipal candidates in Salt Lake County got off to a glitch-free start, according to the county clerk, with surprisingly brisk use of drop-box ballots.
Residents from Logan to Sandy to St. George are casting their votes to decide which candidates for mayor, city council and school board will advance to the fall general election.
The primary election is open to all eligible and registered voters, regardless of party affiliation.
“Slow and steady,” Salt Lake County Clerk Lannie Chapman said Tuesday afternoon of voting thus far. “We’re seeing a lot of people using the drop boxes, which is amazing.”
(Chris Samuels | The Salt Lake Tribune) A ballot is placed in a drop box in Riverton on Tuesday, Aug. 12, 2025.
For a list of candidates up in your city, visit the lieutenant governor’s website at votesearch.utah.gov, or check out slco.vote, put up by the county.
That same county page will feature election results as they are tallied after polls close.
Chapman said voters seem to have absorbed the Utah Legislature’s recent tweaks to rules on mailed ballots and requirements that clerks receive hand-delivered ballots by 8 p.m. Tuesday.
“We are super proud of them,” she said of voters using the county’s 28 drop-box locations. “It’s great.”
The county was also staffing 12 live voting centers for Tuesday’s balloting.
(Chris Samuels | The Salt Lake Tribune) Lynn Lewis votes at Riverton City Hall on Tuesday, Aug. 12, 2025.
Initial numbers issued Monday night show turnout countywide hovering around 17% — a number Chapman said would assuredly rise with Tuesday’s voting.
Many of the county’s cities are offering a slate of candidates this primary, though Salt Lake City and several other municipalities are skipping it.
Utah’s capital city, for instance, is again using ranked choice voting, meaning there is no primary for all four council seats in play this year.
Under parameters set by the Legislature, the Nov. 4 election will be the last race in which Salt Lake City will use the instant runoff system of ranked choice.
Races in some other cities in Utah’s most populous county, meanwhile, saw too few candidates to prompt a primary, and those names will compete in the fall election.
Chapman’s office also issued notice early Tuesday that votes for four municipal candidates would not be counted, due either to their withdrawing after ballots were printed or their failing to file timely campaign financial disclosures.
Withdrawing were Joe Christensen, a candidate for Murray mayor, and Matte Renlund, running for District 4 on the Riverton City Council. Renlund’s move meant that contest would no longer be part of the primary election.
The two disqualified candidates, according to Chapman’s office, were McCall Williams, vying for Sandy mayor, and Derek Spender Matsumori, running for the Sandy City Council’s District 3 seat.