The League of Women Voters is confused by our Legislature’s attempts to make voting more difficult. Lawmakers have pushed out several bills that undermine the intent of Utah’s premier voting system and, frankly, will make record-keeping more difficult and less reliable.
Utah is one of eight states and the District of Columbia that use all-mailed ballots: California, Colorado, Hawaii, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, Vermont and Washington. Rep. Candace Pierucci remarked in a recent committee meeting that one of those was not like the others. In a sad statement of partisanship, she was referring to Utah being the only red state in the group. In fact, Utah decided to embrace all-mailed ballots in 2013 because of convenience, cost savings and voter turnout.
Now lawmakers want to require voters to take their ballots in person with a photo I.D. to a polling location or ostensibly, a staffed ballot box. They have cited polls that show people want identification of voters. Of course, we do, but Utah already requires identification — just not at every single election.
In an email to me, Derek Monson of the Sutherland Institute clarifies their own poll this way: “Voters in our survey say they will be more confident with photo ID for mail-in voting, but they also say they will be less confident requiring voters to vote in person. And they weren’t asked to evaluate their confidence with both of those policies at once, which might produce a different result than asking about each one individually in a policy vacuum.”
Lawmakers say they are choosing “integrity over convenience.” In fact, there have been no threats to the integrity of the system. Yes, two ballots came in from dead people during the 2023 municipal elections, but the mistake was easily caught and is being investigated. That is two out of 1.7 million active voters.
Another bill, HB445, would do away with same-day registration and registration by provisional ballot. We have heard that the rationale for many of these bills is to get immediate election results. While that is a worthy goal, it does not justify weakening our voting system. We should expect that county clerks are carefully reviewing the ballots.
And speaking of careful review, Utah has for 10 years depended on the nonprofit Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC). “Each member state submits their voter registration data and motor vehicle licensing data to ERIC. ERIC’s technical staff compares these data against data from all the other member states and Social Security death data,” its website states.
However, Rep. Karianne Lisonbee would like to end that relationship and hire an independent third party — and start over. She has tried before as ERIC has become victim of a nationwide conspiracy theory that it is a left-wing tool. The 24 states — and the District of Columbia — that subscribe to ERIC are both Republican and Democratic. Rep. Lisonbee cited a Colorado report that found 30,000 non-citizens were sent notices about voting, though officials said they were unaware that anyone who received the notices in error had tried to register. The problem was not with ERIC’s data, but rather how the two systems were integrated. Utah does better than that.
Our trust in government and the systems we employ is under attack, and our lawmakers should not be the attackers. Utah citizens should contact their representatives to voice their support for our system. We should not allow unfounded fears to infect what has been proved to be a safe, effective and reliable institution.
Katharine Biele has been president of the League of Women Voters of Utah since 2022.
Katharine Biele is the president of the Utah League of Women Voters.
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