Over the last few months, we have discovered some interesting demographics about Wasatch County property owners and voters. Our analysis of the Wasatch County 2022 taxable property data showed 26,092 properties. Of those, 16,964 were “improved” properties — i.e., land with a home or a commercial building. The balance, 9,128 properties were plated lots or land with no structures.
More recently, in our efforts to support Bob Adams’ election as the Wasatch County assessor, we refined that data to develop a mailing list. All properties have their mailing address in the public tax records. However, I could see by observation we had large numbers of property owners living outside of Wasatch County and thus cannot vote here.
We refined that data to eliminate duplicates, bad addresses, and addresses outside of Wasatch County reducing the total to 16,378 addresses. This analysis left only 34% of the residential property owners living in Wasatch County. Where do the others live? Well, 12% live elsewhere in Utah and 10% live in other states. Only 14% of the commercial property owners have addresses in Wasatch County.
In the primary election June 25, you can only vote for candidates in your party. So, refining the data even further, I found another surprise. I found that nearly 35% of the registered voters were not in either of the major parties. It was not a surprise that the major party is the Republican Party in Wasatch County.
In the general election in November, all registered voters can cast ballots and thus, the small party and unaffiliated voters are a major voting bloc.
So for those of you not happy with your Wasatch County property taxes, voting in the June primary election for Bob Adams is your opportunity to get an assessor who will comply with state laws and manage a more equitable property tax system in Wasatch County.
In addition, voting for Tina Cannon for state auditor will get you a watchdog at the state level to monitor the county and State Tax Commission. Tina’s audit report is a major piece of evidence in our lawsuit against Wasatch County’s incumbent assessor and the State Tax Commission. Since primaries generally don’t get high voter turnout, your vote counts if you want to see an improvement in the Wasatch County property tax system.
Bill Quapp
Fair Tax Advocates, Wasatch County