Facing threats from GOP election doubters, would Utah’s L.G. endorse Trump? Here’s what she said.

Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson, the second woman in Utah’s history to hold the position, stepped into the office overseeing the state’s elections at a fraught time for the public servants working to uphold America’s voting systems. She was sworn in on Jan. 4, 2021 — two days before the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.

Since then, she has faced frequent threats and attacks, some more serious than others. The FBI intercepted a “suspicious” letter addressed to her office last week that contained white powder and was signed by the “United States Traitor Elimination Army.”

Those threats largely stem from former President Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn his 2020 loss and false claims of election fraud that he and some of his supporters continue to amplify. While Henderson’s running mate, Republican Gov. Spencer Cox, has said others in the GOP are erring in casting those doubts, Cox shocked Utahns with an endorsement of the ex-president in July.

Meanwhile, the Cox-Henderson campaign became the target of baseless election fraud allegations earlier this year after beating the party-backed candidate in the Republican primary contest.

[READ: Utah started sending ballots by mail to raise turnout. Here’s how many use them amid efforts to nix that choice.]

Henderson recently sat down with The Salt Lake Tribune to discuss Utah’s elections process, allegations by some — including fellow Republicans — that mail-in ballots lead to corruption, and to share her thoughts on the recent threats to public officials.

“It’s really important to get good information out there,” she said ahead of the interview while through the door of her Capitol office — where hangs a miniature of a mural of Seraph Young Ford becoming the first woman to vote in the Beehive State.

Utah is one of eight states to send ballots to all active, registered voters by mail, and the only red state to do so. Amid false assertions that elections in this country are rife with fraud, and calls from others in her party to upend Utah’s vote-by-mail system, Henderson has become one of its loudest defenders.

This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity. Questions appear in bold, while Henderson’s answers follow.

From your perspective, what are the benefits — and some of the drawbacks — of offering vote by mail after having overseen elections here the past four years?

There’s a lot of benefits to voting by mail. We have really long, complicated ballots. We’ve got a lot of races on each ballot: we have constitutional amendments, sometimes there are propositions on ballots, you’ve got local races, you’ve got judges. And if you want to have someone cast an informed vote, it’s much easier for them to sit at their kitchen table and look up candidates, look at the voter information pamphlet, look at the [Utah Judicial Performance Evaluation Commission] ratings for the judges. Right?

I think that having the ability to take the time that a voter needs to cast an informed vote. And then being able to just walk outside and stick it in their mailbox or drive to a ballot drop box when it’s convenient for them is really good. That convenience is, I think, incredibly important to provide access to ballot for people.

If proposals to eliminate or restrict mail-in ballots that have come before the Legislature were to pass, what would that look like for county clerks as they’re changing their systems? How would that impact taxpayers down the road?

There are always changes in election administration. I think clerks would be fine implementing the things that they need to implement — I’m not terribly worried about our clerks’ abilities to scrap vote-by-mail and implement in-person only. They’re great people. They’re talented. They’d be able to do it.

The issue is going to be cost — not just the fiscal impact, that would be a significant cost, enormous cost, to implement that.

But I think another cost is in access to the ballot for individuals. Over the years, as we have slowly implemented vote by mail, it’s been done voluntarily. We allowed counties to start opting in to vote by mail, and they finally all opted in voluntarily before it became the primary method in our law for them to run elections.

We have seen this idea that you don’t have to do things one way to have it be secure. There are multiple ways to do things, and we’ve really tried hard to make sure that everybody’s votes are secure, that our elections are accurate, that the person who is declared the winner did, in fact, win. And we’ve put a whole bunch of checks and balances in our system over the years, and we continue to do that to ensure that eligible voters are voting and that their votes are being counted accurately.

How have you seen voters responding to the vote-by-mail system?

I think we’ve seen voter participation go up. People love vote by mail — if the numbers are any indication of how people feel about it. The vast majority of people vote by mail and love it and appreciate it.

It’s very important, I think, for us as a state to say we want people to be able to vote in whatever way they’re most comfortable. So, if that means going and voting in person, some people really love that experience of going into a vote center or polling place, voting in person, getting your sticker — that’s really important to some people, and that’s great. We want people to be able to do that if that’s what they want.

But I think the numbers show that very few people really care enough about that to vote that way. Most people are putting their ballots in a drop box or returning them by mail, and I think that speaks to their level of confidence that they have in our election system here in Utah.

Some of the people I’ve talked to who vote by mail said they do have questions about its security. I’m curious what you think the solution is to soothe some of the anxieties around election fraud, etc., especially as those seem to be largest among your own party?

Trying to quell the anxieties and provide good information is an ongoing challenge. It’s almost like rumors and outrage and even outright lies are so much more interesting than boring old truth and reason. In fact, it’s hard to compete with it.

So trying to make sure people know where to go to get trusted information is really important, and the county clerks are really good at trying to provide that information for their constituents. You know, the state, we try to provide that information as well. But honestly, it’s going to take everybody deciding that they’re going to do their part.

If you see a politician that’s out there trying to subvert voter confidence, maybe distrust that person a little bit before you start distrusting the whole system, because that person has something to gain. The system is in place, the checks and balances are in place to protect everybody.

County clerks don’t care if you’re a Republican or a Democrat. They want you to vote and they want your vote to count accurately. And they want you to have confidence in that.

These are public servants that care deeply about this space. It’s a hard place to be right now, election administration, it’s not a fun job anymore like it used to be, from what I hear from a lot of these clerks and officials that do this.

They get threats, they get accusations, they get protests, they get disruption, they get chaos. Chaos doesn’t help anybody, but the person who’s trying to inflict the chaos. Chaos is a red flag that everybody should watch for.

The people who manufacture chaos, they’re doing it for selfish reasons. They’re not doing it to serve the public interest. The public interest is served by order, it’s served by the rule of law, it’s served by good citizens who show up and and peek over the shoulders of the people counting the votes, peek over the shoulders of the people verifying signatures. Become a poll worker, attend public audits, that’s what good citizens do, and we need them to do that.

It’s very important the people who question, the people who show up to verify. That’s all very important, as long as it’s part of that orderly process. Critics are welcome, absolutely, and they’re an important part of us always trying to do a good job and a better job, but saboteurs — saboteurs aren’t welcome.

What are your thoughts on some of the remarks that former President Donald Trump has made about election integrity? Gov. Cox has endorsed Donald Trump. Have you decided who you might vote for in November?

Look, I am in a position right now where I don’t want to alienate anybody, no matter who they are voting for for president. I saw [The New York Times columnist] David French recently tweeted something about good people are voting for Harris, good people are voting for Trump, good people are voting independent.

I never want to conflate a person’s character with who they support politically, but I will say that I have a real struggle with people who do know better and should know better at the top of Republican politics, who are sowing doubt and chaos and confusion for political gain — no matter who it is. And yeah, it’s been starting at the top, but it’s also trickling down through the ranks, and anybody who participates in that is not doing their country any service.

Will you be making an endorsement before the general election?

No, I won’t.

Over the last four years, what has the volume and type of threats your office and county clerks you’ve been working with throughout the state looked like? Has that changed this election cycle?

I was in the state Senate for eight years, and I never received any threats. I had people who were mad at me for one thing or another, people who might say mean things, but I didn’t get any threats until after I was elected lieutenant governor. And it’s been shocking, frankly — disheartening.

I’m not alone. A lot of elected officials in this state and election officials throughout the country also get threats. I talk to my colleagues in other states who face similar challenges, get a lot of threats.

The threats, and the intimidation, and the harassment definitely have an effect on elected officials, even if they don’t do the thing that the person is demanding that they do, it can have a silencing effect. It can make elected officials step back. It can make them not engage and interact with the public the way they want to. It can isolate them further. It’s not good for anybody.

These threats are real, they’re scary, they’re un-American. And I think the scariest part of it is a lot of these people who make these threats feel like they’re being patriotic. They feel like they’re being righteous in what they’re doing, and they’re not. They’re neither. It has a very damaging effect on individual elected officials, and government in general and society in general. It trickles out to everybody.

Have you compared notes with Cox, your predecessor, about what threats have looked like between his time as lieutenant governor and your time? Obviously, the political landscape has changed a little bit, but are some of those threats more gendered?

I frankly don’t know of any threats that Lt. Gov. Cox received. I think times are very, very different now than when he was lieutenant governor. They changed very quickly in 2020.

He was lieutenant governor during COVID, and I think there were some challenges that year that pertained to him for sure. But up until that point, I don’t think that there, to my knowledge, had been much of anything.

Since that time, it’s just spiraled out of control. I can’t say that the direct threats are necessarily gendered. I will say some of the harassment and intimidation is for sure. I don’t know that there are a lot of elected men who get, like, rapey threats and that sort of thing.

What are you doing ahead of November to prepare for what threats might look for you, as well as county clerks, after the election?

When it comes to security measures, of course, we don’t talk specifically about them, but we do work very closely with the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security and state law enforcement to assess threats that come in — both physical and cybersecurity. We’re able to learn from the past and anticipate better what to expect.

And I really think that even more than physical threats, the disruption to the process is a threat in and of itself. I think we can expect that — it’s borne out around the country, certainly our primary election bore that out. This idea of finality is just not there anymore if it’s an outcome that certain people don’t like.

But we have taken steps. Last year when there was mail delivered, not to Utah but to other states, with a powdery substance in it, a fentanyl-laced substance, we did order some boxes for election workers that have gloves on the outside. It’s a safe place to open up a suspicious-looking envelope. We delivered Narcan across the state, we delivered PPE masks and gloves, told the counties to ensure that their election workers know that there’s gloves that they should be using when they’re handling mail and things like that.

The fact that we are primarily a vote-by-mail state is helpful from a security standpoint. I remember before we became all by-mail, we would show up at the local elementary school during the school day to vote. That’s not a thing anymore with all the school shootings — that’s an option that’s foreclosed to us.

So when you talk about going back all in person, I think that creates another level of risk that this decentralized vote-by-mail process that we have right now helps mitigate, to a large degree.