Utah governor likely to sign legislation phasing out universal mail ballots
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — Utah would stop mailing ballots to all voters automatically under a bill sent to its Republican governor as the state’s 2025 legislative session wrapped up on Friday.
The Republican-controlled Legislature approved a proposal requiring voters to opt in to receive their ballots in the mail. Voters who want to return their ballots by mail or to a drop box would need to write the last four digits of their driver’s license, state ID or Social Security number on the ballot return envelope. And starting in 2029, residents who vote in person would need to show a valid ID.
If Gov. Spencer Cox signs the bill into law, Utah would leave a list of eight states — all others Democrat-led — that allow all elections to be conducted by mail without a need to opt in.
“I’m very supportive of it. I think it’s a brilliant bill,” Cox told reporters Friday night. “Lots of people wrongly believe that we have mass fraud in our elections, and it’s just not true, but we need to restore trust to them as well.”
The governor has repeatedly expressed confidence in the state’s election security but said he supports changing the system so that votes can be tallied faster. Utah voters lose trust in elections when it takes weeks to count ballots, leaving time for bad actors to spread the lie that something nefarious is happening, Cox said.
Currently, ballots that are postmarked by the day before Election Day can be counted within the following two weeks. The proposal awaiting Cox’s signature would move up the deadline, requiring all ballots to be in the county clerk’s possession by 8 p.m. on Election Day.
Lawmakers pointed to the same legislative audits to make cases for and against the bill. The recent audits found no evidence of widespread fraud in Utah’s elections but identified some delays in removing deceased residents from voter rolls. Democrats said the changes were unnecessary and would make voting more difficult, while many Republicans said the voter roll issues indicated a need for new security measures.
“We have high confidence in vote by mail,” said Sen. Mike McKell, one of the top Republicans in the chamber. “But we also have concerns with security, and what we’re trying to balance in this bill is how do we enhance security and at the same time make voting easy?”
Five Republicans joined all Democrats in opposing the bill, which passed with veto-proof margins in the House and fell one vote short of a veto-proof majority in the Senate. If Cox rejects the bill, which seems unlikely, Republican supporters would need to pull in one more senator to override his veto.
Democratic Sen. Nate Blouin said that by passing the bill, Republican lawmakers were feeding into “conspiracy thinking” around election security.
Republicans have sent their base mixed signals about mail-in voting since President Donald Trump falsely claimed the system was plagued with fraud to explain away his 2020 election loss. Trump continued to sow distrust even as his campaign team and the Republican National Committee began encouraging Republicans to vote by mail in the 2024 race to avoid giving Democrats an edge.
The vast majority of Utah residents mail in their ballots or deposit them in drop boxes.
Earlier versions of the bill received strong pushback from Utah’s county clerks, who have since withdrawn their opposition. But some say they have lingering concerns that the changes will make elections less secure.
The measure directs clerks to prioritize checking ID numbers over the current practice of matching signatures to those on file. Weber County Clerk Ricky Hatch warned that could lead to a rise in voter fraud because he said it’s easier to get ahold of someone’s state ID number than it is to forge their signature.
“It is absolutely not a perfect bill, and that’s why the clerks didn’t support it. We simply removed our opposition,” Hatch told The Associated Press. “A big reason why we did that is because we received assurances from sponsors that they would continue to work with us to fix the remaining issues we have to help make sure voters aren’t hurt.”
Tribal IDs would also be accepted under the version of the bill that cleared the Legislature, alleviating concerns that it would disenfranchise Native American voters in the last state that gave them access to the ballot box.
By HANNAH SCHOENBAUM
Associated Press
