Election officials in two southern Utah counties failed to comply with state law and put the integrity of multiple elections at risk in 2024, according to a performance audit the state Office of the Legislative Auditor General released Friday.
In monitoring the March presidential primary, June primary and November general election in 2024, auditors found clerk/auditor offices in Piute and Wayne counties were rife with problems, including chain of custody issues, procedural errors and other violations.
Putting elections at risk
“Although we did not observe anything that would negatively impact the results of an election, the failure in these counties to follow election law increases the risk of inaccurate or inappropriate election outcomes,” auditors stated in the report.
State law enacted in 2023 requires the Legislative Auditor General’s office to monitor elections in all 29 Utah counties every even year on the calendar. Jake Dinsdale, the office’s senior audit supervisor, said the main 2024 audit results were released in December. However, he added, the office opted to file the results for Piute and Wayne counties separately due to the serious nature of the violations uncovered in both places.
“Our report that was released in December highlighted some concerns we found here and there but nothing that was systemic to a county,” Dinsdale told The Tribune. “Whereas these [problems in Piute and Wayne counties] were serious enough that we felt it was necessary to highlight them.”
Piute County’s clerk/auditor office logged the most violations, according to the report. For example, only one election worker handled and processed all the ballots in Piute, as opposed to the two required by law.
“On one occasion, staff were processing ballots when a citizen arrived at the clerk’s service window,” according to the report. “The small stack of active ballots that were in process when the citizen arrived were left unattended and outside the view of the office video camera for several minutes while staff assisted the citizen.”
Piute election officials, the report continued, further failed to immediately count ballots and divide them into batches to ensure each one was accounted for, as required by law. Instead, the ballots were placed inside the clerk’s vault until they were later added to the running total for that election day.
“Doing this—along with letting single workers handle ballots—can make it difficult or impossible to detect if an election worker inappropriately added or removed ballots,” auditors stated in the report. “Ensuring proper ballot handling and batching can strengthen the chain of custody and mitigate this risk.”
In addition, the report continues, Piute County election officials neglected to set up ballot dropboxes in all four of its cities. Specifically, people in Marysvale did not have a dropbox to submit their ballots. Moreover, the dropboxes set up in the other three cities were not clearly marked.
Auditors also called out Piute and Wayne counties for not having adequate camera coverage of the ballot processing areas. In Piute, the cameras failed to provide footage of the vault used to store ballots, the clerk’s desk where ballot processing took place or a conference room across the hall where the votes were scanned for tabulation. Auditors in Wayne County observed the cameras in the courtroom where the votes were processed and scanned were not operating because the cameras were under the control of state court officials.
‘Fully in the wrong’
Moreover, auditors learned both counties failed to reconcile ballot processing statistics as required by statute and to publish the results. Reconciliation involves balancing the number of voters with the number of ballots cast. The two counties also “violated multiple requirements” in their post-election audits.
“I fully admit I was in the wrong,” said Wayne County Clerk/Auditor Felicity Snow, who took office two years ago. “I overlooked a few things. A majority of the issues were fixed in the primary and were implemented correctly for the general election.”
To avoid any further miscues, Snow added, she is implementing more training on proper procedure and creating a checklist to make sure her office is in full compliance with election statutes. She already installed permanent cameras that she could control in the November election.
Piute County Clerk/Auditor Kali Gleave did not respond to requests for comment. Gleave submitted a statement that was read to lawmakers by Weber County Clerk Auditor Ricky Hatch during a legislative audit meeting Friday.
“My small staff and I have worked hard to make sure nearly all of the recommendations from the audits were implemented as of the 2024 general election,” Gleave’s statement said. “My office will continue to work hard to ensure all processes are strictly followed to maintain election security.”
Auditors have presented both clerk/auditors with a laundry list of recommendations to help them clean up their processes and avoid further problems in upcoming elections. While legislative auditors can make recommendations, it is up to the lieutenant governor’s office, which oversees elections, to enforce compliance with state election statutes.
