The Utah Republican Party rolled out a new caucus registration system for the 2024 primary — in several locations the system proved to be confusing and burdensome for voters, including Brighton High School in Cottonwood Heights where a palpably frustrated crowd turned out on Tuesday night.

Voters could either preregister with the caucus, or register on site. Then, they were given a wristband and were directed to one of the precinct rooms to participate in the caucus.

But of the 20-plus people who spoke with Utah News Dispatch, not one person had a positive thing to say about the new process. Many voters approached reporters unsolicited to express their frustration.

“We’re angry,” a man yelled at reporters from the crowd.

“It’s a fiasco,” another man said.

“I hope you report on what a cluster this is,” one man said as he passed a TV photographer filming the room.

“These guys did a terrible job of telling us what to do,” one voter griped to another.

“We should be getting a ballot in the mail,” said a woman who, after waiting for about an hour, finally registered for the caucus.

The registration process proved to be a bottleneck, with many voters unable to access the online form because of connectivity problems, while others were simply confused by the system.

In Cottonwood Heights, a number of voters even walked up to reporters asking for advice. “Do we get a wristband?” one man asked. “Do you know what’s going on here?” said another, followed by his wife asking, “What is the deal with this line?”

There were similar reports outside of Cottonwood Heights, with long lines and frustrated voters at caucus locations in Herriman, South Jordan and more.

“We are having, in a couple of locations like this, a little bit of a challenge in communicating what the process is,” said Republican Party Chairman Rob Axson. “In a host of other locations it’s running smoothly and seamlessly, that’s fantastic.”

Axson, who spoke to reporters during the caucus, defended the new system, but admitted there were too many precincts represented at the Cottonwood Heights location. According to a volunteer, the high school hosted 56 precincts consolidated into 36 caucuses.

“That will be something we document moving forward,” Axson said.

Katherine Pennock, a lifelong Republican and a former state and county delegate with the party, summed up her experience at Brighton High School in one word: “disastrous.”

“No planning, far too many precincts here, nobody in charge telling people where to go, the website keeps crashing, people don’t know what to do, a lot of people have left,” she said. “We’ve grown up with mail-in ballots. The idea of a precinct caucus in this day and age, especially when it’s as poorly planned as this, is idiocy.”

Axson, who lives in one of the precincts represented at Brighton High School, spent time wading through the crowd trying to help confused voters.

“Most of the folks, as soon as I walked them through the process, went ‘Oh, that was super easy,’ and it worked just fine. They just didn’t know what to do so they were getting frustrated,” he told Utah News Dispatch.

At one point, the crowd waiting in line swelled to at least 300 people. Axson addressed the voters, trying to explain the process.

“You shouldn’t be required to have a phone to vote,” one man shouted at Axson.

Voters, many of them older, struggled with the digital check-in, which required scanning a QR code with a smartphone. Although there was a pre-registration process that included a paper option, many showed up with nothing.

“Most of it might be my age group. We’re not used to QR codes and phones, we’re used to paper ballots. I’ve never seen anything this confusing,” said Beverly Leeder, a lifelong Republican who recently moved to Utah from California. “Couldn’t we have gotten something in the mail?”

Leeder, who said she was hoping to vote for former President Donald Trump, left out of frustration before she was able to register. Other voters followed suit.

“This is like my 11th time trying to do this. I’m kind of surprised they didn’t realize this was going to happen. I think you’d have to be living under a rock to not know this was going to be this insane,” said Lynn Parker, who eventually left without participating in the caucus.

Axson said he was disappointed to hear about people leaving, but told reporters that turnout remained high.

“I understand somebody’s frustration if they come in and there’s a line, we’re trying to do everything we can to expedite that process. But ultimately, if a handful of minutes, even beyond what you were expecting, is too high of a cost, that’s more of a criticism of what’s going on nationally in our country, that people don’t know how to express themselves and they don’t know how to get involved,” he said.

Axson pushed back on the idea that the process was too confusing for voters.

“I believe the American public and the Utah citizenry here in our state are smart enough to get involved and we appreciate the patience, and I can appreciate being confused in the moment,” he said.

Utah News Dispatch is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news source covering government, policy and the issues most impacting the lives of Utahns.

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