SALT LAKE CITY-Tuesday afternoon, Utah director of elections, Justin Lee, conducted a walk through concerning the state’s upcoming June 30 primary election during a meeting of the Utah Legislature’s Government Operations Interim Committee.

Discussion was brief and Lee exhorted lawmakers and their constituents to remember that patience, while difficult, is going to be essential moving forward.

Lee said this is because delays are to be expected. He cited the reason for this, saying it results from changes largely implemented via laws passed during the April special session in HB3006.

Lee stated most counties will be quarantining ballots for 24 hours “out of an abundance of caution” before they are processed to avoid potentially spreading coronavirus.”

Canvassing, which usually spans two weeks, will last as long as three weeks this election to account for late ballots arriving via mail.

Initial election results will also not go up until 10:00 pm on Election Day in contrast to the usual 8:00 pm.

Lee stated this is because most counties will only be conducting voting by mail and may postmark their ballots after the poll closes at 8:00 pm.

Seven of Utah’s 29 counties opted to set up mobile voting as well. These counties (Box Elder, Weber, Davis, Salt Lake, Utah, Iron and Tooele counties) will have drive-up locations where Utahns may request a ballot that must be filled out elsewhere and returned by mail or to a drop box.

Lee said voters should not expect to turn up to a polling location and find a voting machine there.

Ballots may be postmarked on Election Day instead of one day prior as in previous locations.

Like other changes implemented through HB3006, this will only be in place for the June 30 primary. However, Lee continued, discussions have occurred to make subsequent elections like this.

The deadline to register for voting in this primary is June 19 at 5:00 pm. You can check your voter registration information at vote.utah.gov.