Ballots await processing at the Salt Lake County Government Center in Salt Lake City as votes are cast in Utah’s primary election on Tuesday, June 25, 2024. (Photo by Spenser Heaps for Utah News Dispatch)
The Utah County clerk — who has been a vocal critic of voting by mail — is facing calls from state election officials to improve his office’s election processes after a state review of the 2024 primary found some of his staff were “too strict” during ballot signature verification, “resulting in unnecessarily challenged ballots.”
The review by Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson’s office also found other discrepancies that could have potentially allowed some 19 voters to cast their ballots in person without ID verification. Though state election officials did not go as far as to raise concerns about voter fraud in the report released this week, they wrote there’s no way to verify that because at some polling places, the county poll workers counted more ballots than they reported identifying voters.
Those problems reconciling the number of ballots cast and voters that checked in at polling places were because of a new “fast cast” voter program Utah County implemented this year that lacked controls and was therefore “noncompliant” with state election code,” according to the report.
Utah County Clerk Aaron Davidson, in an interview with Utah News Dispatch on Tuesday, generally accepted most of the state’s recommendations to improve his office’s election processes, saying he’s already acted on most of them — but he took issue with the assertion that his office’s signature verification was “too strict.”
“Who defines ‘too strict’?” said Davidson, who encouraged Utah County voters to use ballot drop boxes or in-person voting this year while expressing distrust in the U.S. Postal Service. “It’s subjective.”
In their report, state election officials emphasized the importance of adhering to “best practices” outlined in training materials provided by the Lieutenant Governor’s Office.
“Voting is a constitutional right,” state election officials wrote in the report. “Signature verification is the process by which identity is established for by-mail ballots. Care must be taken to verify that each ballot was cast by the registered voter, but undue and unnecessary burdens should not be placed on voters, especially when a voter’s signature matches the signature on file with the county clerk’s office.”
Problems with ‘fast cast voting’ program, voter reconciliation
During the Lieutenant Governor’s Office’s review of the 2024 primary, it found some discrepancies in the Utah County Clerk’s office while reviewing both reconciliation and signature verification practices, according to the report.
Henderson sent four members of her elections team to review processes and procedures in the Utah County Clerk’s office on July 2, “prompted by concerns over reconciliation” at the county’s polling locations and “above average ballot signature rejection rates.”
Reconciliation means the act of ensuring that the number of people that checked into a voting center and the number of votes cast at that center match. Reconciliation, the report says, “is paramount to ensuring election integrity and ensuring that ballots are properly counted throughout the election process.”
During their review, Henderson’s staff members confirmed “reconciliation at polling places was not always conducted pursuant to state statute.” More specifically, discrepancies occurred when ballots were being tabulated using the county’s new “fast cast voting” program, which Utah County experimented with during the 2023 election and implemented for the 2024 primary. That program, Henderson’s office concluded, lacked controls and was therefore noncompliant with state election code.
The “fast cast voting” program allowed people to take their filled out by-mail ballots to polling locations and scan them directly into a tabulator after showing their ID.
Ahead of the primary, State Elections Director Ryan Cowley warned about possible problems with the “fast cast” program. The report says he voiced concerns about the “potential for individuals to scan more than one ballot without poll workers’ knowledge.”
“In order for the ‘fast cast’ tabulators to read by-mail ballots, a key security feature must be disabled,” the report says. “Disabling this would allow for any ballot to be read, creating the potential for multiple ballots to be scanned in by a single voter.”
During their July 2 visit to Utah County Clerk’s Office, Henderson’s staff reviewed the county’s records of the number of people who checked in at each polling location and the number of ballots cast at each location. Even though their review happened a week after the June 25 primary, the clerk’s office had not reconciled their polling locations, the report says.
From their review, Henderson’s staff found there were at least 19 more ballots cast than voters who had checked in at Utah County polling locations.
“This means that at least 19 votes may have been cast without a voter showing ID or having their signature checked and reviewed by poll workers at the polling location,” the report says.
Davidson attributed the discrepancy to “confusion with poll worker training,” according to the report. “Clerk staff believe that these voters were properly verified, but the check-in process was not fully completed by polling place staff, meaning those voters did not receive vote history.”
However, the report states, “there is no way that this can be verified.” While state elections officials don’t go as far as to say those votes were fraudulent, they wrote in the report it’s “conceivable that some voters may have cast more than one ballot through the ‘fast cast’ system or skipped the check-in process altogether. Either would be a violation of Utah law.”
High signature rejection rates
Henderson’s staff “also discovered that some employees were rejecting ballot signatures at significantly higher rates than others,” the report says. “This required higher incidents of notification to voters and required voters to cure their rejected ballots. The process created unnecessary additional steps for elections staff and voters who had cast a legal ballot to have their vote counted.”
“While the Lieutenant Governor’s Office encourages innovation by local election officials, those innovations must maintain sound principles of security and accessibility,” the report says. “This office also supports the right of each Utahn to choose from any statutory voting method.”
Utah law and rules set by the Lieutenant Governor’s Office outline training standards for election officials regarding signature verification. Each individual verifying signatures on ballots are required to complete an annual training course established by the Lieutenant Governor’s Office. Henderson’s office verified that everyone who verified signatures at Utah County had completed that required training.
However, during their review, Henderson’s staff found Utah Conty’s signature verification rate was higher than the statewide average for the 2024 primary and more than five times higher than the state’s 2023 primary election rejection rate — which promoted further view, according to the report.
During their July 2 visit, Henderson’s staff “reviewed the signature rejection rates of each Utah County elections employee, conducted a random sample of signatures reviewed by various employees, and specifically focused on those with high and low rejection rates,” according to the report.
One employee, they found, was rejecting too many signatures. About 25% of the voter signatures that that employee rejected “should have been accepted,” state officials wrote. Other Utah County employees also had high rejection rates, according to the report.
“Properly verifying voter signatures is important, but the high rejection rate and the results of the review suggest that some staff members were too strict in their signature review,” state election officials wrote in the report, adding that the high rejection rates “should have been caught” during audits that are conducted during signature verification processes.
“When the Lieutenant Governor’s Office staff asked county clerk management about the audits, they acknowledged that they did identify a number of employees who seemed to be rejecting signatures at higher rates than other election employees,” the report says. “However, no remedial action was taken.”
Henderson’s staff also noted at least one factor that seemed to be contributing to Utah County’s high signature rejection rates was the quality of signatures that the county clerk’s office had on file.
“The clerk’s office should make a concerted effort to obtain and save higher quality signature images as voters submit updated voter registration forms, affidavits, other forms, etc,” the report says. “Grainy or otherwise unclear signatures make it difficult for proper comparison.”
Recommendations
Henderson’s office offered a list of recommendations for the Utah County Clerk’s Office, including:
Reconcile the number of voters checked in at each polling location with the number of ballots cast at each polling location — a process that should be completed by poll workers at the polling place and reviewed for accuracy by the clerk’s office during the canvass of the election. They also recommended reconciliation to occur periodically throughout the day at each polling location.
Either abandon the “fast cast” voting program “or make significant modifications to bring it into compliance with state code.”
Review Utah County’s signature verification procedures and training materials provided by the Lieutenant Governor’s Office and implement the best practices outlined in those materials.
Review and implement the signature verification audit policy established by the Lieutenant Governor’s Office and the instructions related to audits in the Utah Elections Handbook.
Begin updating the Utah County Clerk’s Office’s signature bank by saving higher-quality images.
Utah County Clerk response
Davidson said in general the state review of his office’s procedures was “really good” — adding that he’s already implemented some of the state’s recommendations — though he disputed a few aspects of the report’s findings.
“I’m not disputing we can improve,” he said. “Yes, we can improve. But I don’t think it’s as bad as their findings say that it was.”
On the recommendation that Utah County update its signature bank with higher-quality images, Davidson said “we have no idea what they’re talking about on that,” saying he’s not sure what “blurry” or “graining” signatures state officials were referring to.
“We work hard every election,” he said. “Every ballot that’s cast, we associate every ballot that’s cast … with the voter record, and we can store up to five signatures. And we have religiously done that. So if they happened to see some signatures that are grainy or unclear, they must have stumbled upon a couple of them where that’s the only signature we have.”
Davidson also took issue with the characterization that his office’s signature rejection rate was too high. He said it’s not necessarily a bad thing that their rejection rate was “above average.”
“So it’s hard to say, well, was that due to being better educated and not just approving everything. Or did we swing too far?” he said.
Davidson added that if anyone has concerns about Utah County’s signature verification or other procedures, he urged them to come visit his office and watch the process.
He said his office now has weekly signature verification training every Monday morning using real Utah County voter signatures, in addition to the training provided by the lieutenant governor’s office.
“We’re going to continue to use their training, plus our additional training,” Davidson said. “Because their training is kind of text book training, whereas we’re going to look at real signatures … and talk about the stylistic similarities and differences with our reference signature compared to the signature that they put on the ballot.”
Asked if his office’s additional signature verification training could cause his staff to be “too strict” when verifying signatures which could result in a higher rate of rejection, Davidson said signature verification is “subjective” and “not a hard science.” He said the additional signature verification training is meant to “try and make it not so subjective, but it’s still going to be subjective.”
Shelly Jackson, Henderson’s deputy director of elections, told Utah News Dispatch in an interview Tuesday that as long as counties are doing the state’s required signature verification training, “we have no concerns” with additional training.
“Our concerns,” she added, “would be if they are putting an extra barrier, an extra hurdle for voters to overcome.” She noted the review did find instances of signatures that should have been accepted, but weren’t, and that’s what state election officials were concerned about.
As for the “fast cast” program issues, Davidson said his office will make “significant changes” to that program to increase controls. In November, instead of tabulating the ballots on the spot at polling locations after voters show their ID, he said his office will have “special ballot envelopes” that voters will slide their ballots into before they’re placed in a drop box to be counted and reconciled with in-person voter check in tallies and tabulated later at the county clerk’s office.
Davidson said the new “fast cast” process would be different from a by-mail drop box because voters’ identities will be verified by ID, and not by signature verification.
Davidson continued to discourage voting by mail, saying “we reject 0%” of the ballots cast in person, while signature verification and ballots being sent through the mail can have more issues.
He also raised frustrations that the lieutenant governor’s office focused on the discrepancies listed in the report, but not on concerns he raised with about 3,900 ballots delivered directly to the county clerk’s office by a postal worker.
“They broke protocol,” he said. “They delivered it to our lobby with an individual mail carrier. And that really broke the chain of custody. During elections, we’re supposed to go pick up the ballots from the post office with two people. Anytime those ballots are touched, and they’re live ballots, two people have to be there at all times. And that gave me great reservation about the postal service.”
He also complained about ballots that don’t get postmarked, which can result in ballots being disqualified. Under Utah law, by-mail ballots can’t be legally counted unless they’re postmarked the day before Election Day.
He said he told state election officials about these concerns, but they were dismissed as “we trust the postal service, don’t worry about it,” he said.
Jackson, however, told Utah News Dispatch that when he raised the concerns with state election officials, “he also told us that he spoke to the post office, addressed that, and his concern was resolved. So I’m not sure what there is to keep focusing on.”
The state review also focused on ballot processing and verification within the county clerk’s office — not on processes before the votes are cast at polling places or before ballots reach the clerk’s office. “These are statutes that are in place and that were under (Davidson’s) control and his purview,” Jackson said.
Overall, Davidson said he’s accepting the state’s findings and recommendations.
“We’re implementing them, and we were already implementing them before the review came out,” he said.
Asked whether state election officials will be following up to ensure Utah County implements the recommendations, Jackson said “we always follow up.” She said she doesn’t anticipate any continuing violations, noting Davidson “has been working with our office, he’s been responsive to the report, and his staff is great, they’ve been cooperative.”
“But yes, of course, we’ll follow up,” she added. “That is part of our role overseeing elections.”
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