After a legislative audit revealed two votes cast in the names of deceased Utahns, opening the door for vote-by-mail critics to lash out against the system, Gov. Spencer Cox reaffirmed his support for mail-in ballots and his determination to oppose legislation that would shut it down.
However, Cox also floated the idea of earlier deadlines for mailed ballots in order to expedite counting and ensure Utahns would get their electoral results sooner.
“No, I don’t think we need to eliminate mail-in voting, but we should always be doing more to make it more secure,” Cox said Thursday during his monthly PBS Utah press conference.
The audit released earlier this month found no evidence of “significant fraud,” but did encourage better maintenance of the state’s rolls of 2 million registered voters, identifying 1,400 registered but deceased voters who hadn’t been removed. Criminal investigations are underway into the two ballots cast for deceased voters.
Now, Utah’s election system that automatically sends by-mail ballots to all active registered voters could be in the crosshairs of Utah’s Republican supermajority in the Legislature.
House Speaker Mike Schultz, R-Hooper, showed his frustration as the audit was presented to lawmakers, grilling elections officials and questioning how Utahns can have confidence in vote-by-mail elections.
Asked Thursday whether he would veto legislation seeking to dismantle the vote-by-mail system, Cox said he would need to see the details of any bills that surface, “but it’s highly unlikely I would sign a bill that completely eliminates mail-in voting.”
But when it comes to returning those ballots, Cox said perhaps the state should require that any voters using the U.S. Postal System should be subject to earlier deadlines in order to get their votes processed sooner and ease the burden on election administrators. Once the deadline has passed, voters could instead turn to in-person voting or secure drop boxes to cast their ballots.
“So I do think we can limit the scope of mail-in voting in a way that adds trust to the system and makes it easier for clerks to administer,” Cox said.
Read the full report at UtahNewsDispatch.com.
