Editor’s Note: This story is part of a partnership between KUER, PBS Utah and Utah News Dispatch to cover Utah’s 2026 midterm elections.
Even though Utah’s June 23 primary is months away, an important deadline for voters is coming up fast.
“If you're currently, say, Constitution Party, and you want to switch to Independent American, you have to do that by April 1,” said Cambria Cantrell, who works as an elections coordinator at the Lieutenant Governor’s Office.
Party affiliation matters for Utah voters.
“For a closed primary, you have to be affiliated with that political party in order to vote in their primary election,” Cantrell said. “Whereas with an open primary, you can just request that party's ballot through your county clerk's office. So you do not have to be affiliated with that party.”
According to the Salt Lake County Clerk’s Office, the Republican, Libertarian, Constitution and Green Parties all hold closed primaries. The Democratic Party, Independent American Party and Utah Forward Party all have open primaries.
While closed primaries are limited to voters registered to that specific party, the rules for open primaries are different. “Open” means just that: any registered voter, regardless of their party affiliation, can cast a ballot.
However, only affiliated voters will automatically receive that party’s primary ballot in the mail. Others have a little more work to do.
“You will want to call your county clerk's office and tell them that you would like to request a, say, Democratic primary election ballot,” Cantrell said.
And even though open primaries are available to voters of any party affiliation, that does not mean voters can cast multiple ballots. For example, a registered Republican cannot request a ballot in the Democratic primary and also cast a vote in the GOP’s closed primary.
“No matter what, you can only vote in one primary election,” Cantrell said.
Do open or closed primaries affect outcomes?
To Taylor Morgan, a political consultant with the Utah-based lobbying and public affairs firm Morgan & May, the Utah Democratic Party’s decision to hold an open primary could have an impact in the state’s new 1st Congressional District.
“This is fascinating,” he said in an interview this week with Utah News Dispatch.
Because the winner of the District 1 race will likely be determined in the Democratic primary rather than the November general election, Morgan said “Republicans, unaffiliated voters, third-party voters are all going to want to vote in that open primary.”
And he predicts Ben McAdams — former Salt Lake County mayor and the last Democrat Utah voters sent to Congress in the more competitive 4th Congressional District in 2018 — will win because of this dynamic.
Morgan is critical of the Utah Democratic Party’s longtime decision to hold open primaries. He said he’s repeatedly pushed Party Chair Brian King to hold a closed primary — mainly because he argues it would not only help build the party’s numbers, but also data about the party’s Utah identity.
“Really, this [District 1] race and the open-closed primary dynamic, I think it has huge implications for future politics in Utah,” he said. “There really is a window in time and opportunity right now for Utah Democrats to build a party that could be … highly competitive in the future, given everything happening with national politics, given Utah voters’ frustrations with the current administration and current majorities in Congress.”
But by continuing to hold an open primary, Morgan said “we won’t have key strategic takeaways from this because we won’t have good voter data relative to the Utah Democratic Party.”
“They’re looking at the opportunity of a generation here and completely ignoring it,” he said.
Utah Democratic Party Chair Brian King disagrees with Morgan. He argues Utah Democrats welcome voters of all political stripes in their primary to foster a broader set of views. At the same time, he argues party “raiders” don't happen widely enough to make an impact in the newly redrawn district, which he said has enough of a Democratic majority to ensure the party’s base still drives the outcome of the primary.
King said the aim of the open primary is to “set ourselves up as the competition to the Republican Party in Utah, which of course” currently has supermajority control over all of the statewide offices and in the Legislature.
In contrast, he thinks a closed primary, like what the Utah Republican Party does, leads to a “litmus test, leads to intolerance, leads to my-way-or-the-highway thinking.”
Deadlines for unaffiliated voters
For those who are not affiliated with a party, the deadline to choose is a little more relaxed. They have until June 12 to decide.
Utah voters are not required to join a political party in order to vote, but for those who want to, Cantrell recommends not waiting. The easiest and fastest way to affiliate, she said, is to go directly through your local county clerk’s office.
“[The Lieutenant Governor’s Office is] happy to answer pretty generic questions about process and that sort of thing, but the county clerk is always the one who can do any updates to a person's voter record,” she said. “Any party affiliation request, if you submit it to our office, we will get it to the clerk's office, but if you're able to just send it directly to the clerk's office that tends to be a little faster.”
Primary ballots will go out starting June 2, and voters have until June 16 to request their ballot in the mail. Primary election day is June 23.
