It’s been an outlier from Republican-controlled states that in recent years have looked to limit mail-in voting, as state leaders here have generally supported its universal vote-by-mail system that remains popular with most Utah voters.

But that could change under a bill that cleared its first legislative hurdle on Tuesday that would drastically restrict voting by mail in Utah and require most voters to show their IDs every time they vote.

It advanced alongside another bill that could make Utah join another Republican-led movement fueled by distrust in election security, fueled by false claims of fraud in the 2020 presidential election, and other elections since. If it’s passed by the full Utah Legislature and signed by Gov. Spencer Cox, Utah would become the next state to separate from the national Electronic Registration Information Center, known as ERIC, a nonprofit meant to help states maintain their voter rolls by sharing information across state lines.

The House Government Operations Committee on Tuesday voted to advance both bills to the full House for consideration. Here are their details:

• HB300, sponsored by Rep. Jefferson Burton, R-Salem, would still allow ballots to be sent to Utahns’ mailboxes, but require voters to drop off their ballots at a polling place or a drop box manned by at least two poll workers while showing a valid form of identification. It would allow voters to opt in to voting by mail — but only after submitting a form in person at their county clerk’s office at least 45 days before the election. Permission to vote by mail would only last two years and would need to be renewed by the voter.
• HB332, sponsored by House Majority Whip Karianne Lisonbee, R-Clearfield, would place new requirements on the lieutenant governor, the state’s top election official, to report on efforts to maintain accuracy of voter rolls. It would also require the lieutenant governor to withdraw Utah from ERIC by July 6. In its place, the state’s top election official would have the option to enter into agreements with other states to share information or contract with a different third party to maintain voter rolls.

Both bills advanced out of the Republican-controlled committee. The bill to scale back voting by mail and require ID to vote, HB300, passed on a 9-4 vote, with all four Democrats and one Republican, Rep. Paul Cutler, R-Centerville, voting against it.

Lisonbee’s bill to divorce from ERIC, HB332, passed on a 10-3 vote, with two Democrats and one Republican, Cutler, voting against it. Rep. Andrew Stoddard, D-Sandy, was the only Democrat that voted in favor.

The bills passed with conservative supporters arguing Utah has leaned too far in favor of convenience while sacrificing security with voting by mail, leading to decreased voter confidence. They also argued in favor of requiring voter ID rather than signature verification to validate ballots, and expressed distrust with the effectiveness and security of ERIC.

From the opposing side, critics urged lawmakers not to fix what “ain’t broke.” They argued Utah’s election system doesn’t have widespread security issues, while expressing worries that these changes will only limit voter participation, especially for those who would struggle to turn their ballots in by hand. They also warned that without ERIC, Utah may have a tougher — not easier — time maintaining its voter rolls.

Should Utah scale back voting by mail in favor of requiring ID to vote?

The bill’s sponsor, Burton, cited several local and national polls he said indicates Utahns favor requiring a form of ID to vote while urging lawmakers to support his bill.

“The majority of Americans and the majority of Utahns believe that voters should show their ID when they vote,” Burton said.

Utah already requires two forms of ID and proof of residence to register to vote, but does not require an ID when casting a vote. Today, the vast majority of Utahns use by-mail ballots to vote, which election workers verify by matching signatures county clerks have on file for each voter.

Among the surveys Burton cited was a national Pew Research Center survey conducted last January that showed 81% of Americans support requiring all voters to show government-issued photo identification to vote.

Another was a survey commissioned by the conservative think tank Sutherland Institute, which found a slight majority, 51%, of Utahns said requiring photo ID (as opposed to just a signature) when voting by mail would make them more confident in their elections, while 20% said it would decrease their confidence.

That same poll, however, found that an overwhelming majority of Utahns (83%), said they’re confident their ballots are being counted accurately under the existing system.

To Rep. Candice Pierucci, R-Herriman, it also comes down to Utah being the only red state among eight that conduct universal by-mail elections, including six Democratic strongholds and one swing state.

“Those states are Washington, California, Oregon, Nevada, Colorado, Hawaii, Vermont and Utah. One of these things is not like the other,” Pieurcci said, prompting some laughs from the committee’s audience. “It was once said to me, ‘It is one thing to be on the cutting edge, but not the bleeding edge.’ And I think there is a balance between convenience and security in elections.”

Utah Republican Party Chairman Rob Axson also threw his support behind the bill, saying “convenience matters, but paramount beyond convenience is trust and confidence.”

Even though local polls show a vast majority of Utahns remain confident in their elections, Gallup polling shows trust nationally has decreased especially among a faction of Republican voters since 2006 as elections have become more polarized. This year, a contentious election focused more scrutiny on voting in Utah than ever.

Though President Donald Trump won handily in the red state, a bitter gubernatorial race between Gov. Spencer Cox and his unsuccessful challenger, Rep. Phil Lyman, divided the Utah Republican Party and sowed discord and distrust over signature gathering, voting by mail and other issues.

HB300’s critics, including Democrats and representatives from pro-democracy groups including the League of Women Voters of Utah, argued the bill goes too far to rollback voting by mail to the detriment of Utah’s voter participation rates. They also argue recent legislative audits show fraud rates are extremely low under Utah’s current system.

“We just implore, do not take this kind of drastic action that would reduce our current participation rate and disenfranchise (voters),” said Helen Moser, director of voter services for the League of Women Voters of Utah.

House Minority Leader Angela Romero, D-Salt Lake City, opposed the bill, saying she’s received plenty of emails from her constituents expressing concerns that “this will disenfranchise people.” She also worried about increased costs for counties and their clerk’s offices to man ballot drop boxes from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. leading up to Election Day.

If HB300 is approved in its current form, it would result in an estimated $425,500 in one-time costs and $6 million in additional ongoing costs for counties across the state to enact its requirements, according to its fiscal note.

“I will confess this is costly,” Burton acknowledged. “But clearly, in a free republic we’re willing to take some responsibility for making sure our elections are fair and secure. So we’ll be looking at those costs and finding ways to bring those down.”

Burton suggested relying on unpaid volunteer poll workers to help save costs, as well as shifting staff time from signature verification to manning drop boxes and polling places.

Ken Alterman, who identified himself as “one of those volunteer poll workers that we hope we’ll have more of over time,” spoke against the bill.

“I have seen no evidence in support of the proposition that there was voter fraud anywhere in our system that would require us to now overturn the system and start over again with something else,” he said.

Jordan Hess, a Republican Party precinct chair from Washington County, urged lawmakers to support the bill, saying he prefers to drop his ballot at a drop box rather than sending it through the mail, pointing out that more than 1,000 voters’ ballots were disqualified last year in southern Utah because they missed the state’s postmarking deadline.

“You need an ID to rent a car, to fly on a plane, to purchase a gun, to adopt a pet, to check into a hotel room, to apply for a fishing license, every time you go to a doctor’s office,” he said. “It shouldn’t be hard to require an ID when we cast our vote, which is a sacred duty as Americans.”

But Barbara Smith Warner, executive director of the National Vote at Home Institute, urged lawmakers to vote it down.

“Utah is a leader in vote by mail,” she said. “If it ain’t broke, please don’t fix it.”

While the bill advances to the House — where it has the backing from the top Republican, House Speaker Mike Schultz — it’s likely to see some changes.

Senate Republican leaders including Sen. Mike McKell, R-Spanish Fork, have said they expect to propose alternative legislation.

The goal, McKell has repeatedly told reporters, is to make voting “easy” for as many people as possible, while also making it “hard to cheat.”

Will Utah be the next state to leave ERIC?

With HB332, Lisonbee wants to clean up Utah’s voter rolls.

Throughout her presentation to the committee, Lisonbee said she’s acting on several recommendations legislative auditors listed in a recent audit report that concluded Utah faces no “significant fraud,” but found some errors on Utah’s voter lists.

That audit found 1,400 “likely matches” to deceased voters that hadn’t been removed, with 700 that were marked as “active” voters. Auditors found that two voters that matched as “deceased” cast ballots in the November 2023 election.

“Ensuring that records like these are found, flagged and resolved is nevertheless a crucial part of maintaining an accurate voter list. An accurate voter list is essential to ensuring that only those who can legitimately vote cast a vote,” Lisonbee said. “Questions about the voter roll can lead to reduced public confidence in the election process.”

But in addition to placing new requirements on the lieutenant governor to ensure voter rolls are up-to-date, Lisonbee wants Utah to follow in the footsteps of 10 other states that have separated from a national organization that uses voter registration data from 24 member states (plus Washington, D.C.) to help maintain their voter rolls.

The nonprofit used to be noncontroversial — but Republican attitudes toward the program have shifted in recent years, Stateline reported, “with the rise of disinformation surrounding the country’s election systems, fueled by criticism from former President Donald Trump and his allies. Trump falsely claimed that ERIC “‘pumps the rolls’ for Democrats and does nothing to clean them up.”

Last spring, when several Utah Republican county parties passed resolutions urging Utah’s top election officials to end the state’s membership with ERIC, Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson posted a thread on X explaining ERIC’s role and describing the attacks against it as nonfactual.

“ERIC has become a favorite boogeyman of the radical election deniers,” Henderson wrote at the time. “But their claims are not based in fact, and their demands are counterproductive to their rhetoric.”

Lisonbee, however, pointed to a 2022 Election Administration and Voting Survey report that found the year after 43.8 million Americans moved, only 5.1 million voters were removed from voter rolls for moving out of state, and 4.8 million more were removed for failing to confirm their registration.

That shows voter rolls across the nation, and in Utah, “need some cleaning up, and what we’re doing currently is not working.”

For states that have left ERIC, The Center For Public Integrity has reported that duplicating what ERIC does hasn’t been easy, and secretaries of states have tried but failed to find or create another system that does the same data-matching and cleaning. That can leave states without an effective replacement, and can make their voter databases less accurate.

Weber County Clerk/Auditor Ricky Hatch, who spoke on behalf of other county clerks, said “we agree, absolutely on the importance” of voter roll maintenance. While he said he was not necessarily there to defend ERIC, each year it provides county clerks with about 60,000 records of voters that may be in question that county clerks then check.

“Without ERIC, 32,000 of those per year will not be researched by county clerks because we won’t even know,” Hatch said.

He added ERIC also provides 7,000 death notifications of Utahns, and without ERIC, clerks would not be able to use that information, but have to rely on state department vital statistics and obituaries.

Hatch told Utah News Dispatch later Tuesday that he’s not aware of any other tool or third party that would be any better than ERIC if Utah leaves the organization by July 6.

Lisonbee’s bill would also allow Utah to make agreements with other states to share information. Hatch said that he’s aware that some states are discussing “bi-lateral agreements between states.”

“That could very well grow into something,” he said. “If that grows into a multi-state agreement, very similar to what ERIC is, if the technology is there and the coverage is there, we’re all in, and that’s great,” Hatch said.

But it remains to be seen whether that could be executed in time to not jeopardize what ERIC currently provides.

While Hatch said doesn’t have issues with other aspects of Lisonbee’s bill, he worries it “takes away a tool that we’re using that currently cannot be replaced.”

“I like options. If there are better options out there, let’s get them out there. But let’s not throw away what we’ve got,” he said. “Even if it’s imperfect.”

Utah News Dispatch is part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization.