Democrats Vote in Utah, Hawaii, Idaho

S A L T   L A K E   C I T Y, Feb. 24 -- Turnout for the Utah Democraticpresidential primary exceeded projections and had party officialsscrambling late today to print more ballots to accommodate thepeople who still want to vote, party chief Donald Dunn said.

"We just had no idea. We have gone through all the ballots weprepared," Dunn said this evening. In Salt Lake County alone,the party printed 5,000 extra ballots this afternoon, he said.

At the library in St. George, at least 600 people had voted by5:30 p.m., said volunteer election judge Lolita Hagio. Volunteersthere called the Salt Lake City headquarters to get an extra blockof ballot numbers, she said.

"We are so busy. It's incredible. Right now, I'm photocopyingballots," Hagio said. "We ran out of ballots at 3 o'clock. Thisis totally phenomenal down here. They were lined up at 11:30 and wehadn't even set up the tables yet."

And that's just at one of five Washington County polling places,she said.

While most of the voters have been Democrats, "we do have someRepublicans. They admitted they were, and they were eager to have achange in the administration," Hagio said.

Turnout Heavy Across the State

It was the same story in the capital city. Though the poll atthe downtown City Library wasn't supposed to open until noon, butby that time the 20 people lined up to vote in Utah's Democraticprimary were getting restless. So volunteers James Sewell andDanielle Torp dropped the rope.

A half-hour later, the line stretched about 100 yards across thelibrary lobby and out the door with city voters eager to castballots for their favorite Democratic presidential candidate in alargely symbolic election in an indisputably Republican state.

Though he was still in line with his lunch break over, BlakeSarlow enjoyed the crowd. "Three blocks from Temple Square andthere's a giant line of Democrats," he said. "It's just thecraziest thing."

Sarlow's 33-year-old co-worker Kathy Locke said today was thefirst time she'd ever ventured so close to a voting booth."Politics are mumbo-jumbo," she said. "Bush is turning me ontopolitics. He's got to be stopped."