We cannot secure our education system until we secure our elections — and the sanctity of our elections is under assault.  This bill provides 6 major security measures needed to further secure elections in Utah. You can never be 100% secure but these measures add security while maintaining the ease of voting.

1.  Removes required Universal Mail-In Ballots
   Q. Why would we want to remove universal mail-in ballots? Isn’t it convenient to just mail in your ballot? Won’t removing universal mail-in ballots make it harder for some groups to exercise their right to vote.

• Universal mail-in ballots is where every active voter in the voter rolls is mailed a ballot.
• This creates an issue when clerks are mailing out ballots to people that are not at an address anymore.
• Just this week in a Senate committee hearing, the Cache County Clerk said that Cache County had 6% of all ballots they mailed out were returned as undeliverable. That is about 7000 ballots alone based on the population of cache county
• Universal mail-in ballots only provide signature match to verify the voter that cast the ballot is the one that registered to vote.
• This bill still allows some mail-in ballots. In this case they are referred to as absentee ballots. This allows for someone to apply to receive a mail in ballot for an election due to a disability, age, anticipated hospitalization, or medical treatment, or if the individual will be outside the state during the election.
• It’s up to you to make up your own mind on mail in ballots but we don’t think it is worth the security risk. We have very little say in today’s political climate, and we want our vote to count.

2.  Requires that county clerks post a photo of your ballot on the ballot tracking website
Q. Is this secure to post my ballot online? Ballots are required to be secret; won’t this violate that?
• This is one of the best parts of the bill. The ballots are required to have what is called a short code on them.
• This short code is unique on every ballot and is not tied to voter information.
• You will be able to note down the short code when you vote and then later type it in on the Utah ballot tracking website to not only see the status of your ballot, but to also see an image of your ballot.
• This way you can ensure that your ballot was counted as you cast it.

3. Prevents someone from possessing another voter’s registration form.
Q. Won’t this cause issues with registration drives and getting people to vote?
• This part of the bill makes sure that someone can’t possess or submit a voter registration form that is not theirs unless it is someone like a family member.
• This is meant to help prevent people from ballot harvesting, where people are paid to gather registrations from those that are not already registered.