Utah House Speaker Mike Schultz questioned the future of Utah’s vote by mail system after reviewing two legislative audits from the 2024 election cycle.
During a hearing of the Legislative Audit Subcommittee on Monday, Schultz, R-Hooper, and Utah Senate President Stuart Adams, R-Layton, said they were concerned about the reliance of vote by mail on voter signatures.
“I think the question comes, is vote by mail really as secure as in-person voting?” Schultz said. “And based off the audits we have in front of us, it’s clearly not the case. And that’s concerning to me moving forward.”
Schultz pointed to the two cases where signatures of likely deceased individuals were used to vote in recent elections as evidence that vote by mail is not “every bit as secure as in person voting” because it would be much more difficult to commit impersonation fraud with a fake ID than to copy someone’s signature.
State Elections Director Ryan Cowley, who reports to Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson, conceded that the audit results require his office and county clerks to “step up and do a better job.” But he insisted that the current vote by mail system has sufficient security measures in place and argued that signature verification is accurate in the vast majority of cases.
Read more about the future of mail-in voting in Utah.
.png?width=1200&upscale=true&name=Utah%20Today%20Banner%20(v2).png)
.jpg?width=1120&upscale=true&name=BYU_1984_newsletter_ad%20(blue).jpg)
.png?width=750&upscale=true&name=Round%20out%20your%20day%20(v5).png)
