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SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — Utah voters on Tuesday will navigate a new presidential caucus system that comes months earlier than last time and opens the Republican race to online voting with computers, smartphones or tablets.
Unlike in some past presidential campaigns, the state of Utah is not paying for a primary election this year, leaving the parties to set up their own systems.
Democrats are holding a traditional paper vote, but to boost participation, the Utah GOP is offering online voting in addition to the usual ballot. It's one of the first prominent uses in the country of online voting, which presents new security and privacy challenges for officials.
State Republican officials say they're confident in their process because it's been used for national elections in other countries.
Some questions and answers about Utah's presidential caucus system:
CAUCUSES VS. PRIMARY?
Utah's GOP-dominated Legislature decides every four years if it wants to pay about $3 million for a state-run presidential primary or leave the contest to the parties. This time, Utah Republicans decided to run their own election, scheduling it the same evening party supporters were already to gather at neighborhood caucuses to elect state and local officeholders. With Utah Republicans deciding to run their own contest, lawmakers didn't want to foot an election bill and left Democrats to run their own caucuses, too.
HOW DO REPUBLICANS PARTICIPATE?
The Utah GOP caucuses are only open to Republicans, who can vote online, in-person at their neighborhood caucus meetings, or by filling out an absentee ballot and having another caucus-goer deliver it to a meeting, along with a copy of the voter's ID. The evening meetings are typically open for about two hours. Republicans had to declare to the party by Thursday that they would participate by voting online. Once party officials verified their registration, voters were emailed a 30-digit PIN to enter when casting their vote. The online voting system is open from 7 a.m. to 11 p.m. local time on Tuesday.
HOW DO DEMOCRATS PARTICPATE?
Utah's Democratic caucuses are open to all voters, but they can only participate by attending a neighborhood meeting and casting a ballot. The meetings run from 6 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. local time. Votes will be accepted from anyone in line by 8:30 p.m.
IS ONLINE VOTING SECURE?
James Evans, the Utah Republican Party chairman, said party officials interviewed six companies to administer the system before awarding an $80,000 contact to London-based SmartMatic, which has set up online voting in the small country of Estonia. Evans wouldn't explain the specifics of the system or how he thinks it's safe from security breaches. He contends traditional voting has more risk of fraud. "How do I know that somebody in the county clerk's office isn't messing with the vote results?" he asked. "I think there's a greater likelihood of that than anything else."
Mark Thomas, Utah's director of elections, said state officials studied online voting last year and noted that while security is a concern, even false claims of hacking could throw results into question. While people bank online and file taxes online, Thomas said, elections officials aren't quite ready to adopt online voting. He said Tuesday's vote by the GOP will give an initial taste of what it might look like when government eventually adopts the practice.
WHAT'S AT STAKE?
Republicans Donald Trump, Ted Cruz and John Kasich are vying for 40 delegates; Democrats Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders are competing for 37.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders says he still maintains a "path toward victory" in his Democratic presidential bid against Hillary Clinton, rejecting suggestions that she has all but sewn up the party's nomination.
"I don't believe they have an insurmountable lead," Sanders said Thursday in a phone interview with The Associated Press from Arizona, where he was campaigning. "Secretary Clinton has done phenomenally well in the Deep South and in Florida. That's where she has gotten the lion's share of votes. And I congratulate her for that. But we're out of the Deep South now."
Clinton's campaign pointed to a recent memo by campaign manager Robby Mook, who suggested she has an "insurmountable lead" in the delegate count. The campaign noted its pledged delegate lead of more than 300 is nearly twice as large as any that then-Illinois Sen. Barack Obama held over Clinton in the 2008 primary.
"And note Ohio, Illinois, Massachusetts, Nevada and Iowa are generally not considered Deep South," said Clinton spokesman Brian Fallon, referring to states won by the ex-secretary of state.
Sanders said in the interview he would not seek a recount of results in Tuesday's primary in Missouri, saying it was "unlikely the results will impact at all the number of delegates the candidate gets and I would prefer to save the taxpayers of Missouri some money."
Clinton's win in Missouri means she won all five of Tuesday's Democratic primary contests, adding to victories in Florida, Ohio, Illinois and North Carolina.
Clinton now has a lead of more than 300 pledged delegates over Sanders from the primaries and caucuses: 1,147-830. When including superdelegates, or party officials who can back any candidate, Clinton has a much bigger lead — 1,614 to 856.
Sanders called his loss in Ohio a "major disappointment," adding, "I thought we had a chance to win or come close in Ohio and we didn't." But he said that while "we know we've got a hill to climb," he was pleased his campaign was able to accumulate more delegates and he had a strategy to take his campaign to the summer convention in Philadelphia.
He predicted the upcoming calendar of races in several Western states, including Arizona and Washington, and April contests in Wisconsin, New York and Pennsylvania would offer him the chance to catch up. Sanders' team has suggested a strong late showing might persuade superdelegates to abandon Clinton and support the senator's campaign.
"We think from now on out, we are having states that, everything being equal, we stand a chance to do well in. We think we have a path toward victory," he said. In the interview, he pointed to upcoming contests in Washington state, New York and California as states where he could cut into Clinton's delegate lead.
"If we can do well there, we can win a lot of delegates. And we can have momentum coming into the convention," he said.
Sanders also rejected claims by Clinton's allies that his message had turned overly negative in recent weeks.
"These are folks who have waged some very, very strong attacks against me almost every day," he said, pointing to Clinton's suggestion he didn't support the bailout of U.S. automakers or had attacked Planned Parenthood.
"We have never run a negative ad. But not to discuss Secretary Clinton's record, well, that's what a campaign is about. She can disagree with me on the issues. We will express our disagreements," he said.
Sanders said he fully expects the party to unite after the primaries. "I think every sensible person in this country knows that it would be an incredible disaster for the United States to allow a Donald Trump or Ted Cruz to be president," he said.
"So I am fully confident that people will come together to defeat whomever the Republicans bring up," Sanders said.
MEXICO CITY (AP) — Choking smog returned to the skies of Mexico City this week at levels not seen in more than a decade, prompting fears of more eye-watering days to come as efforts to curb pollution run afoul of the courts and the realities of life.
The haze that shrouded the second-largest city in the Western Hemisphere for four days never reached the worst periods in the 1980s and 1990s, but ultimately resulted from the fact that there are still too many cars on the crowded streets.
"You have to recognize that we are doing better, but it's still not ideal," Javier Riojas, a specialist in environmental sustainability at the Universidad Iberoamericana, said Friday.
Authorities declared the city's first Phase 1 pollution alert since 2005 on Monday due to high ozone levels blamed on a thermal inversion, which traps airborne contaminants from releasing upward into the atmosphere. Mexico City typically sees its worst air smog during the winter-spring dry season when warm, still air settles in the high-altitude basin ringed by volcanic mountains.
At one point on Monday, the pollution index edged past 200 — double the level considered acceptable but far short of the record of 398 set in March 1992.
Since the 1990s, Mexico City has become a vastly different place. Factories have been cleaned up or moved away, leaded gasoline was banned and tough emissions standards have been imposed on cars.
Despite much grumbling the government imposed a rule that forced cars more than eight years old to stay parked for at least six days each month even if they passed smog checks.
But the Supreme Court last year overturned that rule, putting an estimated additional 1.4 million vehicles back on the streets, many of them older, more-polluting models. As traffic jams increased, overall emissions were boosted even more because cars were forced to idle, experts say.
This week's emergency prompted authorities to say they are studying more stringent restrictions on vehicles — including smoke-belching government trucks that are now exempt from smog tests — though there are likely to be more smog-bound days before those have any effect.
Bernardo Baranda, Latin America director for the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy, said that officials ought to re-establish limits on car circulation and improve cooperation across the various jurisdictions that make up the Valley of Mexico.
Longer-term, he called for more investment in public transportation as well as tolls on cars and creation of areas open only to foot and bicycle traffic.
"The root problem is the growth of the vehicle fleet," Baranda said.
Air quality in Mexico City today is generally far better than much of China, India and other parts of Asia. For example, while the alert was still in place on Thursday, Mexico City recorded a pollution index of about 150 while levels were topping 400 in Beijing, according to the World Air Quality Index, which tracks air quality around the globe.
Even with the Supreme Court ruling, vehicles still must pass smog checks every six months. But every car owner knows that slipping the equivalent of about $20 to a verification center worker is enough to ensure the inspection will come out "clean."
Authorities in Mexico City say vehicles are responsible for 87 percent of nitrogen oxide emissions, a precursor to ozone, the most problematic contaminant.
Critics also say a series of city administrations have been enthusiastic about building things like double-decker highways for cars and less aggressive about better public transportation, though the area has expanded its subway, bus and urban train systems. A bike-share program has been wildly popular and dedicated bus lanes have attracted huge ridership since their inception in 2005.
Dwight Dyer, energy and environment editor for the online publication El Daily Post, argued that at least four more dedicated bus lanes could have been built for the amount of money that was spent expanding a highway that rings the city.
"You have a policy of promoting the use of the car, and this has not been only the present administration," Dyer said, adding that the tendency is even more pronounced in suburbs that are home to over half the metropolis' 20 million-plus residents.
"There's a huge market for increasing mass public transit," Dyer said. "But there's very little interest I suppose in doing this because the electoral payoffs are not as high."
Announcing the end of the four-day alert Thursday evening, federal Environment Secretary Alejandro Pacchiano promised to beef up the system of smog inspections and study tougher vehicle restrictions.
Some would like to see more drastic measures.
"I have thought that they should take half of the cars off the road on any given day, and the other half the next," said Ricardo Juarez, a 54-year-old salesman who relies on the subway, buses and occasional taxis to get around.
This week's alert may be a good thing, he said, if it "sends up red flags for the government."