The Salt Lake Tribune Predicts a Low Turnout at Tomorrow's Northern Utah Primary Elections - UPDATED

Citizens who vote in the primaries have MUCH MORE relative individual political juice, however

Here's an interesting story from today's Salt Lake Tribune, geared for those Utah voters who might be a mite lackadaisical about showing up tomorrow to vote in the several Northern Utah municipal primary elections, such as the one happening in Emerald City tomorrow:

• Primary contests abound but turnout could be grim

Here's the setup from SLTrib reporter Derek P. Jensens's opening paragraphs:

There is a Utah election in two days -- really.
Sure, there are few high-profile contests -- no statewide races, no governor on the ballot, not even a Salt Lake City mayoral matchup -- but scores of municipal hopefuls from Logan to Springville to St. George face do-or-die primaries Tuesday.
Eight of Utah's 10 biggest cities have nonpartisan mayoral chases this year -- some with primaries Tuesday. And two of the four Salt Lake City Council chairs up for grabs in 2009 have field-winnowing contests this week.
Tuesday's primary survivors will advance to the Nov. 3 general election.
But in this off-, off-year election cycle, turnout is expected to be meager at best. That may mean, despite the cliché, that every vote truly counts. And that includes early balloting, which, after last fall's presidential flood, has subsided to a trickle.

And here's your Weber County Forum-style neck-snapping segue:

Your blogmeister checked with the lovely Tracey today, of the Ogden City Recorder's office. (The City Recorder's Office will be running tomorrow's Primary & the November 3 General Elections, BTW.)

Here's what she told me about the 2007 Ogden City Municipal Primary Election:

"The 2007 primary election generated 16.8% of the registered Ogden resident vote."

This shows it pays off to vote in the Ogden primaries, people. The voter turnout in the 2007 General Election was , BTW, more like 47%.

Let's have no excuses, WCF readers. Browbeat your friends, families and foes. Tell then all to buckle up on their on morals, and to vote "no on the Big Spending Godfreyites" in the 9/15/09 primary, please. Citizens who vote in the primaries have MUCH MORE relative individual political juice than in the better-attended General Election.

The fewer people who vote in the primary, the more political muscle we lumpencitizens will actually have relatively, so long as hard-core WCF voters show up at the polls to vote. And if politically alert WCF readers and their friends vote to hamstringVal Southwick's very bestest friend... that reminder is all good!

The Godfreyite real estate corporo-welfarists (the people with all the lawnsigns) laugh at Ogden City voters behind their backs, because they have tons of money to throw at this primary election.

Don't let these neoCON nitwits get the last laugh!

Update 9/15/09 8:00 a.m.: The Standard-Examiner continues with the "voter apathy" theme this morning, with this Bryon Saxton story, reporting that Weber County officials expect a 25% voter turnout in the various Weber County cities which are holding primary election polling today. Strangely, Mr. Saxton reports (quoting Weber County Assistant Elections Administrator Melanie Langford) that "County officials are unaware of any big primary races in any of the Weber County cities, ... nor are they aware of many contentious races," despite the major brouhaha which is shaping up in Ogden City. This leads us to conclude of course, that Weber County officials such as Ms. Langford surely must dwell in a cave on Mars, or some other remote venue like that.

Real Time Vote Tallies: And yes, gentle readers. Just as we've done in the past, we'll be posting a new article later this afternoon, with a link to Ogden City's live elections feed, so that Emerald City political wonks can monitor the real time vote tallies, straight from the Ogden City Recorder's counting room.