Former Tooele County clerk Dennis Ewing looks back

Dennis Ewing counted the ballots in 2006 that named Marilyn Gillette his successor as Tooele County clerk and then quietly retired following a 33-year career as the county’s chief election officer. His career started with paper and pencil ballots and ended with the county’s first computerized vote.

Ewing, 68, grew up in Murray and graduated from Murray High School in 1959. He studied business administration, law enforcement, and accounting at Yuba College in California and Weber State College and served four years in the Air Force as an aerospace medical technician.

Returning home to Utah, Ewing originally headed to Tooele in 1966 to apply for a security position at the Tooele Army Depot.

“The depot told me that they did not have any positions open, but that the Tooele Police Department was taking applications,” Ewing said, adding he worked at the police department for about two years before moving to the Tooele County Sheriff’s Office.

While working for the sheriff’s office, Ewing said he was bit by a political bug and became active in the local Democratic Party.

In 1973, then Tooele County Clerk J. Rex Kirk, a Democrat, retired early from office and the Tooele County commissioners appointed Ewing to take his place. Ewing stood for election in 1974 and won his first election — the first in a string of eight, two of which were without any opposition.

As county clerk, one of Ewing’s responsibilities was to conduct county elections. Ewing recounts those early days of elections.

“The county was still using huge paper ballots that were marked with pencil by the voter and then folded up several times and placed in an envelope,” he said. “We had to employ two sets of election judges at each polling place. One set would give out ballots and check voter credentials. Another set would take up residence for the day in a back room at the polling place and open the envelopes and count each ballot.”

Poll workers would often put in 16 hours of work and a few mistakes by tired poll workers were not uncommon, Ewing said.

After the polls closed, a sheriff’s deputy would pick up the ballots and counts and bring the materials to the clerk’s office.

“We would check the counts and tally the votes and announce a preliminary winner,” Ewing said. “Nothing was official, as it is now, until the official canvassing was completed by the commissioners.”

Many times election results were not available until 5 a.m. the day after the election.

“Several times as I left the courthouse after an election was over I would run into the carriers for the Transcript-Bulletin eating breakfast while waiting for the election issue to come off the presses,” Ewing said.

While he was county clerk, Ewing instituted a new procedure to help reach a tally of votes faster so candidates would not have to stay up all night waiting for the count.

“We had the election judges phone in their vote count to the clerk’s office after they were through counting,” Ewing said. “I then posted the results on a large chalkboard in my office.”

The ballots were then returned to the office and an official tally prepared the next day. The system worked fine, but there were a few glitches.

“One year we waited all night long for results from Wendover,” Ewing said. “I can’t remember the time, but we waited until very late after all other precincts were in and still no call from Wendover. We called the polling place and there was no answer. Finally we sent a sheriff’s deputy to the home of the election judge. The deputy had to wake up the election judge. She had tried to call in the results but the phone was busy and she gave up and went to bed.”

In 1982, a precinct from Grantsville called in its votes. Ewing thought he heard 66 votes for Reed Russell, a candidate for county commissioner, and recorded the votes on his chalkboard, when it should have been 166 for Russell. The vote was close and by the end of the evening, Russell’s opponent, Harvey LeFevre, appeared to be the winner. The mistake wasn’t noticed until the next day.

Punch cards replaced the paper ballot and with them came a whole set of new problems.

“We traded the problems of slow speed and human error for mechanical difficulties with card readers,” Ewing said.

The cards worked great and were much faster and more accurate, according to Ewing, but the card-reading machines were very temperamental.

“You had to feed the cards into the machine just right or the machine would grab a bunch of cards at one time and jam and then you had to start all over again,” he said. “Hanging chads weren’t a problem but paper dust from the cards would get into the machine and they would have to be cleaned or they would not work correctly.”

In 2006, as a result of federal regulations, the county changed to computerized voting machines. The machines maintain a printed copy of each vote as it is cast and also records the votes on a memory card.

“The voters loved the new machines,” Ewing said. “And tallying the votes became much easier. The state conducted a random audit of the machines and there were no errors discovered.”

And while Ewing spent so many years at the polls, he votes by absentee ballot.

“I’ll show up at the polls and the poll workers will ask me questions,” Ewing said. “That’s not my job anymore, I can’t help them, so I just stay home.”

After 33 years of watching elections, Ewing still can’t understand why some people don’t turn out to vote.

“I have always believed that voting was an essential right,” Ewing said. “Especially in municipal elections. These people — your city council and mayor — probably have more direct say over your taxes and the things that affect our lives directly, but yet municipal elections historically draw a lower turnout.”

Tim Gillie: tgillie@tooeletranscript.com