On Tuesday, Weber County Clerk Ricky Hatch told the Standard-Examiner that the ballot count hasn’t 100% wrapped up yet.

“We still have about 250 ballots that we’re going to process,” he said. “We have to allow two weeks for military and overseas voters if they’ve mailed them or if people have mailed them and it was postmarked before the deadline. … We’ll process those (250), most likely (Wednesday) and at that point, I think, any remaining stragglers are going to be one or two votes that are legitimate and come in.”

Among the four cities voting in Weber County, turnout was around 31%, according to Hatch.

“It was slightly higher than what we had anticipated,” he said. “(Monday), I spoke with someone from another state and I said, ‘Our municipal primary was a low turnout at 31%,'” and she said, ‘Wow! That’s a high turnout for a municipal primary.'”

He said no election process goes without snags but that this year’s count proceeded as smoothly as it could.

“I wish we had more votes, but the votes that were cast were processed efficiently and correctly and we feel very confident in the results,” he said. “Every election has always had some kind of glitch or problem, we just didn’t have any major problems that impacted any of the counting or any of the processing.”

Hatch added that a ballot or two has caught the county’s eye for further investigation.

“We’ve identified a small handful of what appears to be someone trying to sign someone else’s envelope in their household, but we haven’t pursued those further than the regular ballot curing process,” he said. “After the election is when we take a look at those, investigate, contact the voters and do those checks.”

Meanwhile, he said that some people in Weber County went through the entire process of signing and the effort of submitting a ballot with no candidates chosen.

“We get those every election,” he said. “It’s a really small percentage. Usually it’s just five to 10 ballots that are completely blank. Voters want to show they voted but they may not feel they are qualified or informed enough to cast a vote, or they might dislike the options so this is kind of their way of protesting. We take a look at each of those ballots to make sure that they didn’t accidentally mark outside of the target area or the oval. We just do a double check to make sure that didn’t happen.”

Hatch said the county has counted three blank ballots so far this primary cycle.

He added that it was a pretty smooth beginning to the 2023 election cycle.

“I thought the campaigning was brisk and helpful for voters,” he said. “I liked that, administratively, we tried a few new things — particularly in light of new legal requirements given to us by the Legislature,” he said. “I think we’ve improved our processes to be even better and we’re looking forward to doing the same in November as we prepare for 2024.”

Hatch said they also learned a lot from the process this month.

“It’s really just a refining process at this point,” he said. “Some of the new legal requirements were new to us, so we’re making sure that we’re complying with those in the most efficient way possible. I think it’s just tweaks at this point to make sure that we’re being as efficient and effective as possible.”

Primary election results in Weber County remain unofficial at this time. Each municipality will canvass their respective election’s results at city council meetings on Sept. 19.

The 2023 general election — set back two weeks to facilitate a special election in the state’s 2nd Congressional District — is set for Nov. 21.