If you believe voter fraud has never taken place in the United States, you don’t know the story of how Lyndon B. Johnson won a runoff election in the Democratic primary for one of Texas’ Senate seats in 1948.
Johnson trailed his opponent by about 200 votes statewide. Three days after the election, officials in Jim Wells County, a remote place in the southern part of the state, suddenly “found” something labeled Box 13, containing hundreds of ballots filled out by people who miraculously had voted in alphabetical order and with the same handwriting. Once these were counted, Johnson won by 87 votes.
In 1977, The Associated Press reported an acknowledgment of ballot rigging back then by an election judge. An investigation had been launched in 1948. Plenty of folks were suspicious. But it all went away when Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black ended the probe. Johnson went on to win the general election and eventually become president.
That was in the days of strong political bosses, long before smartphones and the pressures social media can sometimes exert for embarrassment and justice. And there was no president in Washington asserting election fraud while never offering tangible proof.
Fraud in Utah?
Utah may be dominated by one party, but the case for widespread fraud here is hard to take seriously. Still, there are problems.
In Utah, the Office of the Legislative Auditor General found in 2024 that voter rolls contained about 1,400 names of deceased voters that should have been removed. About half those had been sent mail-in ballots. Yet only two ballots had been filled out and cast.
Also, auditors found 300 cases in which voters had been given two voter ID numbers, plus almost 450 records involving two voters claiming the same driver’s license number. Some people had apparently voted twice in the same election.
State records currently list 2,072,506 registered voters in Utah. If you add up all the names of dead voters, duplicate ID numbers, and duplicate licenses, they make up 0.1% of registered voters.
HB479
In an era of charged feelings toward election irregularities, that may be enough to force change. Some members of the House Public Utilities and Energy Committee clearly agonized this week during a hearing on HB479, a bill that would change Utah’s near-universal mail-in voting system.
Rep. Nicholeen Peck, R-Tooele County, said that after countless emails and texts from constituents on both sides, she had finally decided to “err on … the side of the (idea that) people need to feel secure. They need to know that we care about the strength of those elections.” She voted to recommend the bill to the floor of the House.
House Majority Leader Casey Snider, who also sits on the committee, said it’s clear some people voted in recent elections who shouldn’t legally have been able to do so. He doesn’t believe any of that changed any election outcomes, “but I don’t believe that everybody feels that way.” Voting for the bill, he argued, would restore electoral confidence.
The bill passed out of committee, 8-3. If it becomes law, by 2029 Utah voters would have to opt in, either to an option that allows them to mail in ballots or to one that allows them to physically hand a paper ballot and a valid ID to poll workers standing guard over a drop box, but only during certain hours in the last few days of an election. Everyone else would have to vote in person at a polling location.
The bill’s sponsor, Rep. Jefferson S. Burton, R-Salem, said he believes the bill would result in far fewer people voting by mail. The ID requirements mirror some of what Utah Sen. Mike Lee’s Save America Act would do.
The Utah Foundation just published a finding from 2025 that shows how voter turnout in Utah increased with universal vote by mail. The state jumped from 44th in the nation in 2014 to 13th in 2018.
Removing universal vote by mail could cause the state to revert to among the lowest turnout states again, the report said. That’s a consequence of the bill that wasn’t discussed at the committee hearing, but it has a direct bearing on public participation in democracy and interest in government.
20 years ago
It’s worth pausing here to reflect on 20 years ago, a time dominated by different passions. As I wrote back then, people in Utah and several other states were reacting strongly to new electronic voting machines put in place, thanks in part to federal funding after the 2000 presidential election punch card debacle.
People were up in arms over those new machines, debating, as I wrote, “over accuracy, computer programs, independent verification and the ability to tamper with the system.”
Allegations against the machines grew to the point where the clerk-auditor in Emery County decided to get an independent group to examine the machines. But once the machines were opened, the warranty was voided, and the state could no longer guarantee that the machines hadn’t been compromised.
The point here is that, while a state should do all it can to eliminate irregularities, no voting system is completely above suspicion.
Power is a strong motivator. Today, as in 1948, it always pays to watch politicians closely when elections are concerned.
The Constitution gives election authority to the states, which are also the entities most capable of shoring up trust in that process. The day may come when emotions settle and tensions ease in Utah. For now, however, it appears voting may be about to get a bit more complicated.