Davis County Clerk Brian McKenzie poses for a photo in a ballot processing center at the Davis County Administrative Building in Farmington on Election Day, Tuesday, Nov. 5, 2024. (Photo by Spenser Heaps for Utah News Dispatch)
Even though election season is over, pressure on Utah election officials isn’t about to let up.
In the wake of a contentious election that sowed more scrutiny on voting, Utah lawmakers are gearing up to consider changes to the state’s election system, including possible limitations to voting by mail and whether the lieutenant governor should continue to oversee elections.
Ahead of the Utah Legislature’s 2025 general session set to convene Tuesday, the conservative think tank Sutherland Institute hosted a panel discussion this week focused on election policy and possible reforms lawmakers are expected to consider.
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During that panel discussion Wednesday, the Sutherland Institute published new poll numbers showing Utahns continue to be overwhelmingly confident in their elections — but also explored a handful of proposals being discussed and what would help or hurt voter confidence.
That poll showed eliminating early voting and requiring voters to cast ballots on Election Day would be the least popular proposal, while requiring photo identification (as opposed to just a signature) when voting by mail would create the biggest boost in net voter confidence.
More on that poll later. While lawmakers are exploring changes, it’s also important to put the issue into context.
A recent legislative audit found no “significant fraud” in Utah’s election system (which currently sends by-mail ballots to all of the state’s active registered voters), but it also found some errors, including 1,400 “likely deceased” voters who hadn’t been removed from voter rolls. Of those, 700 were marked as “active” voters, and in 2023 two ballots were cast in the names of voters classified as “deceased.”
Out of 2 million registered voters, that’s a small number. But it’s still too many for House Speaker Mike Schultz, R-Hooper, who raised questions about the security of Utah’s vote-by-mail system, which heavily relies on signature verification, after the audit was released.
A clerk weighs in
When that audit came out, Davis County Clerk Brian McKenzie said his first “gut reaction” was, “Holy crap, how in the world did we screw up this badly?”
However, McKenzie also kept in mind that since a preceding audit released in 2022 prompted a wave of legislative changes in 2023, clerks have also been adjusting to an onslaught of new requirements since then, with funding, training programs and mandates not taking full effect until late 2023 and early 2024.
So, McKenzie said a crucial question to ask is “are we making improvements now that we have those resources in place?”
Taking a closer look at legislative auditors’ findings, McKenzie said he noticed a pattern. He said the number of concerns that auditors have flagged were higher during the November 2023 election, but incrementally decreased from the 2024 Democratic presidential primary to the 2024 state primary to the 2024 general election.
“So … are we improving? Yes we are,” McKenzie said. “The data tells us we are improving.”
Importantly, the most concerning findings that lawmakers have raised concerns about — including the two ballots that were cast in the names of voters classified as likely “deceased” — took place in November 2023, before the 2023 Utah Legislature’s reforms took full effect.
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So while McKenzie acknowledged there is always room for improvement within Utah’s election system, he also urged critics and lawmakers to keep the issue in perspective — and be patient.
“My message to the Legislature is, good grief, give us a little bit of a break,” he said. “Because it feels, as an election officer, that I’m stuck in the surf. And this wave has crashed over me, with new mandates, new requirements.”
McKenzie added: “That’s OK, I’m not complaining about that. But it’s knocked me off my feet a little bit and I’ve rolled around in the sand. And just as I’m about ready to stand back up, guess what? We have another legislative session. And another 30, 40, 50, 60 bills are proposed that modify elections. And that wave crashes over us again.”
McKenzie emphasized that he’s “not criticizing” lawmakers “because they have a mandate from the people to make improvements.” But he urged legislators to remember the new requirements and resources they implemented back in 2023 are only just being fully implemented.
Utah County Commissioner Clerk Amelia Powers Gardner (a former Utah County Clerk who also participated in Wednesday’s discussion), agreed with McKenzie, and added that given today’s political climate and added pressures on clerks, it’s no wonder why “we have election officials that are quitting left, right and center.”
“Do we have a voter fraud problem in Utah? The answer is no. We really don’t,” Powers Gardner said. “Are elections perfect? Of course not. Is there room for improvement? Always. I’m a huge advocate of continuous process improvement. But do we have a major voter fraud issue? The answer simply is no.”
However, Powers Gardner said there is one area she thinks is the “biggest weakness in our entire system,” and that’s keeping the voter rolls up-to-date — an issue that was a clear contributor to the legislative auditor’s findings. If lawmakers focus on anything, she said it should be on voter roll “security and transparency of changes.”
How confident are Utahns in their elections?
The Sutherland Institute’s poll results came from a survey conducted by the Salt Lake City-based research firm Y2 Analytics during the 2024 election cycle on how confident Utah voters are in Utah’s elections and what potential election reforms they may or may not prefer.
Even as lawmakers consider changes, the poll found an overwhelming majority of Utah voters are confident that ballots in Utah are being counted accurately, with 83% of Utah voters saying they were very or somewhat confident, while only 17% said they weren’t.
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The poll of 993 registered 2024 general election voters was conducted Oct. 26 to Nov. 20. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points, according to a report written by Derek Monson, chief growth officer for the Sutherland Institute.
“Clearly, Utah does not seem to be starting from a crisis of confidence in elections. To the contrary, voter confidence in Utah appears to be quite high,” Monson wrote, though he noted the poll also shows “there does appear to be a difference in voter confidence driven by political party affiliation and the results on Election Day 2024.”
The poll results showed that “voter confidence in the accuracy of ballot counting visibly increased from before Election Day to after Election Day for Utah Republicans, while the opposite was true for Utah Democrats,” Monson wrote.
“In fact, Democrats had higher confidence before Election Day about their individual ballots, while Republicans had higher confidence after Election Day,” he continued. “And after Election Day, the confidence gap between the two parties was almost entirely eliminated for ballots in Utah generally and the nation as a whole.
Given President-elect Donald Trump’s win, Monson concluded the survey results add to academic research that shows “public trust in elections can be significantly influenced by non-policy factors, such as whether one’s preferred candidate(s) won or lost the election.”
What do Utahns think about proposed election reforms?
The poll also unpacked what Utah voters think about possible changes that have been discussed for consideration during the 2025 session. The proposals and the poll’s results included:
- Requiring photo identification (as opposed to just a signature) when voting by mail would create the biggest boost in net voter confidence, the poll showed, with 51% saying that would make them more confident while 20% said that would decrease their confidence.
- Requiring mail-in ballots be received (not just postmarked) by Election Day would also result in a net confidence increase, according to the poll, with 49% saying it would increase their confidence while 28% said it would decrease their confidence.
- Knowing election results by the end of Election Day would make 44% of voters more confident while decreasing confidence for 26%.
- Election officials emailing or texting voters to tell them the results of the election had the smallest net confidence increase, with 30% saying it would increase their confidence while 25% said it would decrease their confidence.
- Removing election oversight from the Utah Lieutenant Governor’s Office would result in a net confidence decrease, with 35% saying it would hurt their confidence while 27% said it would help their confidence.
- Eliminating voting by mail and ballot drop boxes while requiring all voters to cast ballots in person would also result in a net decrease in confidence, with 51% saying it would hurt their confidence while 33% said it would help.
- Using artificial intelligence to help election officials verify voter signatures would result in the second-highest decrease in net voter confidence, according to the poll, with 57% saying it would hurt their confidence while 20% said it would help.
- Eliminating early voting and requiring voters to cast ballots on Election Day was the least popular with poll respondents and would result in the biggest net decrease in confidence, with 60% saying it would hurt their confidence and 19% saying it would help.
The poll also zeroed in on whether Utah voters would prefer to have their elections chief be elected or appointed.
Last year, Rep. Ryan Wilcox, R-Ogden, introduced a bill that would have stripped the lieutenant governor of those oversight responsibilities and created a separate elections office with a director appointed by a committee that consists of the governor, lieutenant governor, Senate president, House speaker, auditor, treasurer and attorney general. However, that bill, HB490, didn’t progress during the 2024 session, with Wilcox saying at the time he tabled it for more discussion.
House Speaker Mike Schultz has said he’s supportive of removing election oversight responsibilities from the lieutenant governor, but it’s not yet clear what lawmakers will debate as an alternative proposal.
The Y2 Analytics poll showed one thing is clear: Utah voters want their election chief to be elected — not appointed. A vast majority, 74%, said the person overseeing elections should be elected by voters, while 26% said they should be appointed by elected officials.
If Utah lawmakers opted to go with an appointed elections chief, the poll showed 45% of voters’ confidence would decrease while 15% said it would improve their confidence. However, 39% said it would not change.
Read the full Sutherland Institute report on the poll here:
IssueBrief_ElectionReform_PublicTrust_2025
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