It remains to be seen which proposals will ultimately survive both the House and Senate — but here’s a breakdown on what legislators have been working on so far:
In-person ID requirements
It’s the second year in a row that one of Utah’s most powerful Republican state leaders, House Speaker Mike Schultz, has backed a bill that would require Utahns to personally return their mail-in ballots at a staffed drop box or voting center while showing a form of identification — unless they get permission to return their ballots in the mail.
Schultz, R-Hooper, supported a version of that bill last year, but after the Senate weighed in, the 2025 Utah Legislature ultimately passed a watered down version that required Utah voters to write four digits of their state identification number on their by-mail ballots’ return envelopes, while slowly phasing out the state’s automatic vote-by-mail system.
This year, with HB479, sponsor Rep. Jefferson Burton, R-Provo, is trying again to require in-person voter ID requirements for by-mail ballots that are turned in at drop boxes. Those in-person checks would take effect beginning in 2027, and starting in 2029, Utahns would not receive a by-mail ballot unless they request one every eight years. They would not be allowed to return a ballot by mail unless they make a “timely” request to do so.
Wednesday, Burton’s bill won an endorsement from a House committee on an 8-3 vote, with Democrats voting against. The bill now goes to the full House for consideration.
The bill’s critics argued it would create unnecessary obstacles making it harder for Utah voters to cast their ballots when the state’s election system is already widely secure.
Critics also worried about the cost of requiring counties to staff drop boxes to check voter IDs. Fiscal analysts estimated that Burton’s bill could cost as much as $10 million. But Burton in Wednesday’s committee hearing disputed those estimates.
“We absolutely do not accept or believe that that’s going to be $10 million,” Burton said, adding that the estimate was “based on every single voter using this methodology to vote.” He noted that under his bill, voters could still get permission to vote by mail or they could vote in person at a voting center.
Under Utah’s current vote-by-mail system, most voters receive by-mail ballots. Many return them in the mail or use ballot drop boxes, which aren’t currently required to be staffed. Ballots are currently verified by clerks matching signatures. Starting this year, voters will also already be required to include the last four digits of their state ID or Social Security on their by-mail ballot envelope.
Burton, a retired Utah Army National Guard officer, argued that his bill wouldn’t make voting too difficult while requiring more security. He said he’s lived in countries where “people die for the right to vote.”
“They don’t mind getting out of their easy chair. In fact it’s the greatest day of their life. I’ve seen people sobbing because they got to go vote,” Burton said. “We have to protect this. If you look at what goes on in this world, the first thing subversive organizations do is challenge your belief in the voting system, and that is why we have multiple ways to vote. And we encourage people to use their ID when they vote.”
Though multiple audits have shown that Utah’s vote-by-mail system does not have widespread fraud, Schultz and Burton have argued those audits have found instances of errors in the voter rolls, like two ballots cast in 2023 by “dead” voters. That was out of more than 2 million registered voters.
Read the full report at UtahNewsDispatch.com.
