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Once Thought Secure, Utah Implements Further Election Security

Election Law Society · December 26, 2022 ·

By Anonymous

Not many things in the world are monitored 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Bank vaults, hospitals, and military installations are the few that come to mind. However, in this Fall’s midterm elections, Utah’s ballot boxes will be as well.

24/7 video surveillance of unattended ballot boxes are among the several measures Utah’s state legislature has approved as a part of H.B. 313 to secure the state of Utah’s elections prior to the impending 2022 midterms.

House Bill 313, passed in the most recent general session, includes a bevy of changes for Utah voters. Voters are now required to provide proof of identity before voting if they did not provide proof of identification when they registered to vote. Utah is one of eight states that are “all-mail”–they conduct all elections by mail. In 2020, 94% of Utah voters voted by mail. Utah is the only Republican-leaning state that allows all elections to be conducted by mail. Because of H.B. 313, many of these voters will now need to submit a copy of their Utah drivers license or identification.

The legislation, primarily released by Republican Rep. Jon Hawkins, also requires a yearly audit of the voter registration database, limits who may access the election equipment, and reiterates requirements that election equipment may never be connected to the internet. The bill would also require the lieutenant governor to develop requirements for Utah election officials regarding the handling and documentation of “custody” for ballots.

Utah’s legislature passed these increased security measures despite voter fraud being an incredibly rare occurrence in Utah. According to The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, Utah has only had one case of documented voter fraud—in 2008. Utah has allowed voting by mail since 2004. The most common reason ballots are rejected, in fact, do not come from nefarious parties, but instead, from simple mistakes, such as signature issues or unsigned affidavits. Sources have even found that, often times, fraud in Utah may stem from the parents of Latter-day Saints whose children are away on missions.

Despite the security of Utah’s elections prior to the 2020 election and the staggering popularity of voting by mail, the state has been swept up in election misinformation perpetuated by former President Donald Trump’s false claims that the 2020 Presidential Election was fraudulent.

Utah’s state legislature considered 35 proposals in 2022’s general session regarding its election practices—including H.B. 371, which would have removed ballot drop boxes and removed voting by mail as Utah’s primary voting method. The legislation, sponsored by Rep. Phil Lyman failed in committee. While Rep. Lyman alleged voter fraud when speaking in support of H.B. 371, he was unable to produce any evidence of his allegations.

Utah’s Governor and Lieutenant Governor, Spencer Cox and Deidre Henderson, both Republicans, have repeatedly defended the security of Utah’s elections and denounced allegations to the contrary as “absolute falsehoods [that] run counter to Utah law and the foundation of our constitutional republic.”

County Clerks have expressed frustration with H.B. 313’s new requirements. Sherrie Swenson, Salt Lake County’s Clerk, said that the constant surveillance represented an intrusion of privacy, and the new mandate regarding voter identification left her office scrambling to collect the required information from voters.  

The security of Utah’s vote is not the only concern in 2022–election officials said that voters will see armed police officers patrolling election sites in response to a recent increase in political tensions and threats towards election workers.

The Election Debate in the Potato State

Election Law Society · November 28, 2022 ·

By Ruth Jones

During the 2022 legislative sessions, Idaho experienced an extensive onslaught of proposed election legislation. In the 2022 legislative session, over 66 election law bills were introduced into the House. For comparison, in the year 2019, only 22 election law bills were introduced. This dramatic increase in proposed election legislation was fueled by growing concern from the state legislature, as well as Idahoans, that elections were not secure and that legislative action was necessary to ensure that the outcomes of elections were accurate and had not been influenced by electoral fraud.

As the Idaho Legislature debated House Bill 761, Representative Dorothy Moon took to the floor, to stress the need to improve the security of Idaho’s elections based on claims that Canadians have been crossing country lines to illegally participate in Idaho’s elections. However, this proposed example of fraud is completely unsubstantiated. The only recorded concerns regarding individuals crossing country lines to vote involved Americans who had left Idaho to enter Canada, and later returned to Idaho to vote. There, the court found that the Idahoans had not given up their registration and were permitted to vote. 

Despite the inaccuracy of Moon’s account, her fears were echoed in other legislation. On the floor of Idaho’s House, the need to secure Idaho’s elections was constantly stressed. This is an important goal; however, it lacks that urgency stressed by the legislature as there have been no instances of voting fraud in Idaho since 2017. 

Proposed House Bill 549 was also rooted in the desire to increase election security, and would have limited the approved type of IDs that citizens can use to prove their identity at the polls. It proposed to exclude the use of student ID cards. Many voters who have previously used a student ID will likely have an alternative form of photo identification. However, changing the ID requirements would be a major adjustment to the voting process. Despite any communication efforts, there would likely be individuals whose votes would be excluded because they were not aware of the change to approved types of ID and arrived at the polls unprepared.

The security of elections is an essential aspect of protecting the legitimacy of a democracy. If voter fraud frequently occurs, then individuals will not trust the outcome of elections and the system will fall apart. However, focusing on a potential problem that has not occurred can exasperate this situation by perpetuating misconceptions about the validity of electoral results.

The 2022 Idaho legislative docket is a good illustration of challenges that arise when a potentially serious concern is addressed without taking the time to craft a well-tailored approach to election fraud. Proposed House Bill 692 highlighted these fears. 

This bill would have prevented individuals from voting if they have P.O. boxes because the law required voting registration forms to be mailed to a voter’s residence, even if they were unable to accept mail at the location. A regulation that prevented the use of P.O boxes would have an immense impact because Idaho is an incredibly rural state. Idahoans who live in these rural areas tend to use P.O. boxes because their houses are too far from the local town to receive mail. The bill would have implemented a requirement that would have excluded many Idahoans who rely on P.O. boxes for no grounded reason. Bill 692 was eventually pulled from the floor house, but it illustrates the danger of implementing legislation before thoroughly evaluating potential consequences.

Despite the efforts of many in the legislature, none of the above bills were enacted. In fact, out of the sixty-six bills that were proposed, only ten were adopted. The ten successful bills were much milder and included:

  • House Bill 511 which requires the rotation of names on the ballot to address any perceived advantage that was randomly given through a certain location on the list of candidates;
  • House Bill 566 which amends definitions in the Public Integrity in Elections act; and
  • Senate Bill 1341 which releases election results while balancing two time zones.

The election regulations that were approved in Idaho’s 2022 legislation session do not implement any major alterations to the voting process, and they are unlikely to cause significant challenges to voting accessibility.

In this regard, Idaho stands as an example. Despite mass panic regarding the security of elections, the legislative process has the potential to filter out half-baked proposals that unnecessarily exclude voters.

In Maryland, Still Waters Run Deep

cpkelliher · November 18, 2020 ·

The year 2020, in its abundant mercy and generosity, will soon deliver to the American people a welcome respite of stability in this chaotic year of elections: Election Day. The “Time of chusing” remains “the Tuesday next after the first Monday in November” (for Congress as well as for the Presidential electors), and so, as is tradition, Americans eagerly wait for an early November day and the first bite of election results.

But below the surface of the stillness that precedes Election Day, canvassing operations around the country are churning through mail-in ballots. With still two weeks to go, many states have already begun counting votes-by-mail. Maryland’s local canvassing operations got the green light on October 1st, the earliest of any state, in order to handle the mail-in ballots from the 48% of its electorate that planned on using them in light of the pandemic. As of October 20th, the deadline for ballot requests, Marylanders had asked for 1.63 million mail-in ballots and voters had “cast” roughly 696,000 of those, returning them to local boards of elections by hand, mail, or through one of the state’s 283 drop boxes.

[Read more…] about In Maryland, Still Waters Run Deep

It’s Crunch Time for 2020 Election Security: Is Arizona Equipped to Face New Threats?

Election Law Society · April 27, 2020 ·

By: Kristin Palmason

The Help America Vote Act (HAVA) enacted by Congress in 2012 with overwhelming bipartisan support, provides federal funds to states for the purpose of reforming the administration of elections, including upgrading voting equipment and eliminating punch-card and lever voting machines. As HAVA was enacted in response to the 2000 contested election of Bush v. Gore, which hinged on outdated voting equipment and “hanging chads,”  HAVA funds were intended to streamline internal election processes and updating archaic voting systems. Arizona committed to using the funds to replace punch card voting systems, add touch screen equipment and update voter registration, provisional balloting, and grievance processes. By 2015, approximately $3.3 billion in HAVA funds for election assistance was awarded to states nationwide, with approximately $52.5 million awarded to Arizona.

[Read more…] about It’s Crunch Time for 2020 Election Security: Is Arizona Equipped to Face New Threats?

Voter’s Choice: The New Way to Vote

Election Law Society · December 2, 2019 ·

By : Elizabeth Harte

As the nation works to achieve a balance between election security and access to voting, California is rolling out a new system designed to “modernize elections.” Entitled “California’s Voter’s Choice Act,” the act was passed in 2016 and will become available for all counties to adopt in 2020. This extraordinary plan moves voting into the twenty-first century and does away with traditional, assigned voting places. In their stead, Californian counties that opt into the act will implement “vote centers.” These centers will serve as an all-purpose stop for Californians to ensure their voices are heard. For example, instead of the typical assignment to one polling place in their county, a Los Angeles County resident will be able to visit any center in their county most convenient to them and can do so up to ten days before the election. At a center, the said Angeleno can: “vote in person; drop off their ballot; get a replacement ballot; vote using an accessible voting machine; get help and voting material in multiple languages; [and] register to vote or update their voter registration.”

[Read more…] about Voter’s Choice: The New Way to Vote

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