- A legislative audit found that 17 of 29 county clerks failed to conduct proper post-election audits.
- The report found that ballots were likely sent out to 700 deceased voters.
- Legislative auditors called on election officials to make the necessary investments to bring election integrity efforts in alignment with state law.
An audit of Utah elections found a lack of compliance among county clerks in conducting post-election audits, ensuring adequate surveillance and maintaining proper ballot controls.
The 82-page report called on county clerks to bring their procedures in line with state code and urged the Lieutenant Governor’s Office, which oversees elections, to update its guidance for county election offices and to improve the accuracy of state voter rolls.
“While we did not find significant fraud in Utah’s election system, the recommendations and findings in this report are needed to ensure continued election integrity,” the report said.
After the department of legislative auditors conducted a performance audit of Utah’s election system in 2022, the state Legislature mandated an audit of the election system every even-numbered year.
The department’s auditor general, Kade Minchey, presented the 2024 “Strengthening Election Integrity” report to the Legislative Audit Subcommittee on Monday evening at the Utah Capitol.
A response from Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson and her elections director, Ryan Cowley, was included at the conclusion of the report. Henderson and Cowley pushed back against some of the audit’s criticisms, highlighting steps taken by their office to improve trainings, safeguards and accountability among county clerks.
The audit was based on observations from all 29 county election offices in Utah over the course of four elections — November 2023, March 2024, June 2024 and November 2024 — with a special emphasis on the June primary elections, the report said.
Out-of-date voter rolls
The audit found more can be done to keep Utah’s voter registration lists up to date. Legislative auditors identified 1,400 deceased voters who were still on Utah voter rolls. Half of the deceased individuals were still marked as “active” registered voters and would have received a ballot in recent elections.
Of these 700 deceased individuals, two of them cast ballots in the November 2023 election, the audit found. Over 400 likely deceased voters had been on Utah voter rolls for over a year. The audit also found 300 duplicate records and 450 records where multiple people were apparently registered using the same driver’s license number.
“We identified voters who appeared to cast ballots inappropriately in each of these areas of analysis,” the audit said.
The report pointed to a data analyst position created during the 2023 legislative session in order to help the Lieutenant Governor’s Office regularly review voter records. This employee appears to not have done the level of analysis expected by lawmakers, legislative auditors found.
The report recommended that the Lieutenant Governor’s Office compare voter registration lists to death certificate data from the Utah Office of Vital Records and Statistics 90 days prior to each primary and general election. It also called on state election officials using the data analyst employee to prioritize regular in-depth analyses of the voter registration system.
In his response, Cowley agreed with the recommendation but resisted the legislative auditors’ conclusion that his office had not taken advantage of their data analyst. Cowley said he believed his team had complied with the law, and the recommendation, given the available tools and processes at their disposal.
Cowley said keeping up-to-date voter rolls involves more than data analysis because there are multiple “failure points” as data makes its way from the Division of Vital Records, to the Department of Technology Services, to county clerks, to the voter registration system and then, finally, to the Lieutenant Governor’s Office.
Post-election audits
The report details what legislative auditors described as county clerks’ inconsistent adherence to state law surrounding mandatory post-election audits.
After the passage of a 2023 law, county clerks are now required to conduct post-election audits where 1% of ballots received are compared to ballot images and digital tabulation records, also known as the cast vote records. Following isolated software problems in the June primary election, the Lieutenant Governor’s Office changed its policy to also require hand counting the portion of audited ballots to compare the vote totals with the totals recorded digitally.
The audit found that during at least one of the elections included in the report nine county clerks did not compare ballot images to their corresponding paper ballots and 13 clerks did not compare ballot images to the individual cast vote records. These tallies include five clerks who did neither, only checking the ballot image without comparing it to the physical copy or the cast vote record, or CVR.
“(A) failure to correlate the audited ballots to the individual CVR details represents a fundamental failure of audit procedures,” the audit said, adding that if post-election audits are done incorrectly, then their results cannot be relied upon.
The audit found that the equipment in some small counties makes it difficult or impossible to compare ballots to cast vote records because the tabulation data is randomized instead of being organized into batches.
Another essential component of post-election audits is the participation of members of the public and county commission who do not work in the county clerk’s office. According to Utah code, county clerks must conduct the 1% audit in the presence of independent observers who must take a temporary oath of office to participate.
The audit found that 17 clerks did not swear in the outside election auditors, eight clerks did not have any independent observers participate in the audit, and one clerk allowed just a single staff member to conduct the audit without any public oversight.
“Without someone present who can independently vet election work, the county would be just as well off not doing an audit at all,” the audit said.
To address these concerns, legislative auditors recommended that county clerks fulfill their statutory duty to be familiar with proper audit procedures, the state elections director should publish an official set of rules regarding audits in keeping with a 2023 statute, the Lieutenant Governor’s Office should provide funding for updated scanning equipment for counties that need it, and the office should ensure independent observers are included in every county’s post-election audits.
Ballot safeguards
The audit report identified multiple points along the ballot collection and verification processes where counties had room for improvement. During the June 2024 election, legislative auditors observed chain of custody practices in 20 of the 29 Utah counties.
They found that six counties failed to immediately organize ballots into “batches,” groups of around 50-100 ballots, potentially making it harder to track one ballot throughout the entire process. This was done in some cases because counties opted to put ballots in batches after verifying the signatures on ballot envelopes in order to set aside “challenged ballots” and achieve equally sized batches.
Auditors found that one quarter of counties had insufficient camera monitoring. A 2023 law requires that “each part of the processing of all ballots is monitored by recorded video, without audio.” However, legislative auditors found that five counties did not have adequate video monitoring of ballot processing and three counties had at least one camera but they were missing critical parts of the process, like ballot intake, signature verification or ballot scanning.
The legislative audit alleged that some county clerks did not show sufficient care documenting the reception of ballots. County election officials are required to log the number of ballots received from drop boxes or the U.S. Postal Service, and to record who handles them, the pick-up location, the security number on drop boxes and the security seal number on ballot pickup bags.
However, three of the 20 counties observed by the auditors during the 2024 primary election did not record security seal numbers when they picked up the ballots, four counties did not record these numbers when the ballots arrived at the election office and two counties did not keep logs of ballot batches through the process.
Legislative auditors recommended that county clerks batch ballots immediately and apply for federal election grant funding to purchase camera surveillance equipment if they don’t have it already. The state Legislature should provide clearer guidance on ballot video monitoring practices and should condense the three different sections of election code into one, the audit report said.
The audit also recommended that the Lieutenant Governor’s Office establish firmer standards for signature verification training so that judgements are less subjective and are based on clearer guidelines.
How did state election officials respond?
In her response to the audit report, Henderson noted that audits are intended to identify weaknesses not strengths. She expressed a willingness to implement the audit’s recommendations while also listing the proactive measures her office had taken to improve Utah’s election system over the last year.
“My staff and I take our oversight role seriously and will continue to ensure that Utah’s election laws are being followed,” Henderson said. “Given the tumultuous nature of elections, increased public scrutiny of those who administer them, and extensive changes to our election systems in recent years, I am continually inspired by the dedication and professionalism demonstrated by the vast majority of Utah’s election officials. These are not easy times to administer elections, and I applaud them for the work that they do.”
Henderson’s office has taken multiple steps to help train county election officials — many of whom are very new in their positions, she said. In 2021, Henderson’s office offered election training to county clerks for the first time in Utah history, and in 2023, this program was written into state code. The state elections office now visits every county clerk’s office quarterly to provide training and support.
Henderson and Cowley both pointed to large strides they had taken toward clearing up the voter registration system quarterly and enforcing the policies of the Lieutenant Governor’s Office, as when the office conducted a “sweeping review” of the former Cache County Clerk’s handling of 2023 primary and general elections.
In recent years, the Lieutenant Governor’s Office has also requested the office of the Utah Attorney General to investigate election concerns surrounding the former Juab County Clerk, as well as separate allegations surrounding potential signature gathering fraud related to candidate nomination petitions.
Henderson argued that the integrity and quality work of Utah’s election officials has been vindicated by multiple times in court.
“(I)n the past two years we have been the subject of five audits and 20 lawsuits, sixteen of which have been related to election issues such as ballot access, initiative process, petition signatures, GRAMA requests, and election contests,” Henderson said. “Thus far, the courts have upheld my office’s actions in every instance.”