Some American Fork and Pleasant Grove residents will be using paper ballots on Tuesday -- and should be prepared for delays.

On Wednesday, county election officials announced that, following concerns from media and city officials, special paper ballots will be prepared for some voters in Pleasant Grove precincts 1, 5, and 15 and some American Fork precincts that the county had yet to identify.

On Tuesday, county officials said that because of outdated precinct maps, some registered American Fork voters would be redirected from their usual polling places and nearby nonresidents would be allowed to vote on the city's pressurized irrigation bond.

Now all of that has changed, said Sandy Hoffmann, elections coordinator for Utah County.

When asked what had motivated the last-minute changes, Hoffmann said the earlier plan was flawed because the residents are also in different congressional districts, something she didn't realize because of "my inexperience on the job. This is my first year in the driver's seat for the entire county. I was trying to resolve it all on my own."

Rather than redirecting voters to a new polling place, all voters in affected precincts will be asked to identify their home on a map, she said. This will allow election judges to determine which voters are American Fork residents who vote in Pleasant Grove precincts because of the outdated maps. Those voters will then be asked to vote two ways -- electronically for all candidates and then on special paper ballots for the $47 million pressurized irrigation proposal.

"It is going to delay the lines," Hoffmann said. "There will be a special book, and special instructions for the judges. We are having special ballots printed."

In addition, to ensure that unincorporated residents are not allowed to vote on the bond issue, all residents in American Fork precincts where unincorporated voters also vote will be asked to identify their homes on maps. Unincorporated residents will then be asked to fill out paper ballots, which will include votes for candidates and the bond issue, Hoffmann said.

After the election, Hoffmann said she will decide whether to hand-count those ballots or duplicate them, meaning she will replace the ballots with new ballots she fills out so they can be scanned and counted by computer. She would only duplicate ballots in which unincorporated residents voted on the bond issue, so that she could remove those votes.

"If they vote on the American Fork bond issue, we can't let that count," she said of unincorporated voters.

City officials and even the printing company used by the county had called Hoffmann to say special ballots should be printed, she said.

She said the special procedures in affected precincts would delay all voters in those precincts in order to ensure that 20 or so votes were counted properly.

On Tuesday, American Fork Mayor Heber Thompson and city recorder Richard Colborn said they were not aware of the county's earlier plan, which would have allowed nonresidents to vote on the bond issue.

Hoffmann said she will meet with election judges for affected precincts on Monday to instruct them on using maps to determine who should be required to vote on paper.

"I have to make sure these judges understand what I want them to do," she said. "When they pick up their supplies on Monday I will pull them aside and tell them, and I will prepare a sheet of instructions for them."

The election judges will be familiar with the special voting procedures because "they have been doing it every year for years," she said. "The only thing that is new this election is the electronic machines. That puts a glitch in it."

This story appeared in The Daily Herald on page A1.