Elections aren’t meant to be simple — they are meant to be effective.
They are meant to distill the voices of millions of Americans and show us who we chose as our elected leaders. They are meant to be accurate, secure and represent the will of the American people. Having a voice in our government through voting is one of our constitutional rights, and a fundamental American privilege. The more people who vote, the stronger our democracy.
A strength of Utah’s elections is universal mail-in voting. It’s a tool that working parents, rural Utahns and busy professionals use to have a say in who represents them. Over the last 12 years, it’s been wildly popular. In 26 out of 29 counties in Utah, 96.7% of votes came by mail-in ballots.
mail-in voting was established as an option for Utahns by the Legislature in 2012, in part as a reaction to low voter turnout in the state. In 2006, turnout in the state hit an abysmal low of just 44.73%, and in the last year before mail-in voting, 2010, turnout was only 51.55%.
After years of refining the process, our voter turnout has increased to 85.26% — not perfect, but quite high. We should be proud that our state has some of the highest civic participation in the country, and at least part of the reason why is the simplicity and ease that mail-in voting provides.
If more Utahns than ever are voting, why do some of our state lawmakers want to take away mail-in voting?
Obviously any instances of fraud are concerning and should be taken seriously. But if mail-in voting increases turnout by around 30%, is used by nearly every voter in the state and produces only a handful of errors, the Legislature has a responsibility to work harder at fixing those errors rather than scrapping the whole system. mail-in voting isn’t perfect, but you don’t throw away a tool because it has a few chips in it — you sharpen it. To do otherwise would be wasteful and lazy.
So why is mail-in voting being targeted? There are just as many problems with in-person voting. In Utah County this year, we saw “at least 19 more ballots were cast than people who signed in to in-person polling locations across Utah county during the Primary.” If we’re trying to avoid “fallible human judgement” through only in-person voting, that is not realistic.
It’s not surprising that so many Utahns trust mail-in voting. Besides the fact that it’s a felony to tamper with ballots or help someone else do so, it is incredibly hard to do on purpose.
The same post office employees that we trust with our sensitive banking documents, expensive packages and passports are the ones who are delivering our ballots. At polling locations, the ballots are taken to a room where the chain of custody within the elections officials’ control begins.
Ballots are verified and counted in a room with multiple volunteer poll workers, election officials and poll watchers. These poll workers carefully check that:
- The voter is registered to vote in the correct precinct.
- The voter has not already voted.
- The voter has provided valid voter identification.
- The signature on the affidavit of the return envelope matches the signature of the voter in the voter registration records.
- The voter is legally able to vote in the election.
If all of those are true, then the ballot is added to the pile to be counted. If not, the ballot is challenged, the voter is notified to try to correct the issue and the ballot does not get counted right away. The valid ballots get counted by machine scanner.
This process is clearly outlined in Utah law. An update to the statute in the 2024 Legislative Session passed unanimously, so every lawmaker should be familiar with the rigorous process that ballots go through.
There is no logical explanation for why lawmakers want to make it harder to vote, and the misconceptions about election security and fraud are harmful. mail-in voting has helped strengthen participation in our elections, and any efforts to weaken that option this coming legislative session should be rejected by lawmakers.