A man in a Bernie Sanders shirt waits in a line to vote at a Democratic caucus site Tuesday, March 22, 2016, in Salt Lake City. (Associated Press)
After Utah voters waited in long lines and caucus sites ran out of ballots, Democrats are calling on state lawmakers to fund a primary instead of relying on political parties to run the voting.
State party chair Peter Corroon said Wednesday that staffers scrambled to print up an additional 15,000 ballots Tuesday after seriously underestimating the number of voters.
He says the 80,000-voter turnout was unprecedented, and while staffers could have made ballots earlier, the party's smaller budget limited the number of caucus sites.
Utah lawmakers decide every four years whether to pay for a primary. They opted out this year after the state GOP elected to hold its own caucuses. The Legislature didn't want to foot an election bill and left Democrats to run their own caucuses, too.
The GOP didn't have an immediate comment Wednesday.