Major election changes stall in Utah Senate, leaving vote-by-mail system largely intact

Utah lawmakers amended the state’s vote-by-mail system for the second year in a row, strengthening voter identification requirements, but once again rejected efforts to overhaul universal mail-in ballots and election oversight.

In a repeat of 2025, Senate Republicans shut down a major proposal approved by their House counterparts to require voters to opt in to receive or return a ballot by mail and another to create a new secretary of state office.

Ultimately, the Legislature approved small changes through SB194, requiring county clerks to verify both a signature and an ID number on every ballot and formalizing a conflict of interest avoidance plan for the lieutenant governor.

And through HB209, which requires county clerks to prohibit individuals from registering to vote for a state election unless they can provide documentary proof of citizenship, similar to Sen. Mike Lee’s SAVE America Act.

Do Utah elections need an upgrade?

While Senate leadership joined Democrats in questioning the need for major reforms to Utah’s election system, House Republicans continued to push for election security upgrades that would align with Trump administration goals.

Conservatives in the lower chamber argued that Utah is one of only eight states — and the only red state — to provide all-mail elections, and one of only three states where the lieutenant governor has chief election officer duties.

Vote by mail has come under fire in recent years from some elected GOP officials after it resulted in large numbers of rejected ballots due to signature verification errors and delays at the post office during the 2024 primary elections.

A pair of audits published in December 2024 found that the two pillars of vote by mail — voter signature identification and accurate voter rolls — showed a small percentage of errors that prompted a flurry of legislative proposals.

The audits found that the voter identification process of comparing signature affidavits had a 4% error rate, and that voter rolls had 1,400 deceased voters on them, 700 of whom got a ballot, with two casting a vote in 2023.

What happened to in-person, photo ID?

In response, Rep. Jefferson Burton, R-Salem, introduced HB479 this year, modeled after his proposal last year that would have required voters to manually renew mail-in ballot status and to show photo ID to return ballots at drop boxes.

Like last year, Senate Majority Assistant Whip Mike McKell joined the bill as a sponsor, allowing leadership to shape the bill, which stalled in committee on Tuesday amid concerns about the cost of employing workers at drop boxes.

“Logistics still needed to be resolved,” McKell, R-Spanish Fork, said on Thursday. Senate President Stuart Adams, R-Layton, and McKell said they were willing to work on the policy. “We just need to work out the details,” Adams said.

Instead of HB479’s reforms, lawmakers instead passed HB311 on Thursday, Burton’s attempt to keep the conversation alive by commissioning a study of “the security of in-person voting versus voting by mail.”

If signed into law, it would direct $100,000 to Gary Herbert Institute for Public Policy and the Center for Constitutional Studies at Utah Valley University to also study best practices for voter identification at ballot drop boxes.

On Thursday, Burton did not begrudge McKell for making the motion to skip a vote on his bill in Tuesday’s hearing. HB479 didn’t have enough votes in the Senate and this lets him “pivot” to get more data before next session, Burton said.

“I’m committed to just sticking with it until we can fix some of these challenges that we have,” Burton told the Deseret News. “We want Utah to be a model. And I think we do very well in the state. I’m not Chicken Little, ‘The sky is falling.’”

Utah’s own SAVE Act

Burton is now the House sponsor of McKell’s SB194. The bill would clean up last year’s election compromise by clarifying clerks must continue to verify signatures even after the final four digits of government ID on ballots is phased in.

The bill also requires the lieutenant governor, who runs Utah’s elections office, to write a conflict of interest risk avoidance plan, specifying when the lieutenant governor should be recused and who should be the replacement.

On Thursday, both chambers approved HB209 mostly along party lines. The bill, sponsored by Rep. Cory Maloy, R-Lehi, comes as congressional Republicans push to prevent illegal immigrants from voting by requiring proof of citizenship.

The bill would create a “bifurcated ballot system,” similar to that used for military service members. If a prospective voter cannot provide proof of citizenship clerks must notify the individual they cannot vote in state elections.

Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson released an unfinished audit in January that found one noncitizen who was actively registered on voter rolls, but who never voted. The office is still going through the 7,000 remaining records of individuals who could not immediately be confirmed as citizens.

How else did elections change, or stay the same?

The Legislature also passed SB153, which would align Utah with most other states by making voter registration records public unless a voter is the victim of domestic violence, a public figure, a law enforcement or military member.

Amid controversy over ballot initiative battles to repeal Utah’s redistricting laws, lawmakers passed laws to require state trainings for signature gatherers and clarifying the signature gathering and signature removal processes.

In another clash between chambers, the House passed HB529, sponsored by Rep. Lisa Shepherd, R-Provo, which would have accompanied a constitutional amendment to transfer election oversight to a secretary of state.

Supporters argued election responsibilities should not be given to the governor’s running mate, who is not directly accountable to voters. The bill would let the lieutenant governor oversee just one election: the secretary of state’s.

The bill met a quick death in a Senate committee on Monday, with McKell defending Henderson’s job performance and claiming that the same potential conflicts of interest would be present for a secretary of state.