Opinion: How proposed reforms could harm Utah’s elections

The election is over, and our state’s representatives are turning their attention to the legislative projects they hope to pursue. One area garnering attention is election reform. The proposals currently circulating largely target mail-in voting and the pathways to the primary ballot. While our elections could always benefit from continuous improvement, these measures are misguided.
One proposal aims to require voters to request a mail-in ballot. Another would limit who is eligible to vote by mail, while the most dramatic seeks to end the practice of returning your ballot by mail altogether. Another proposed reform would create an appointed secretary of state position to oversee elections instead of the lieutenant governor’s office. Lastly, there is support among some lawmakers for legislation that would allow candidates to bypass party primaries if they win a significant share of delegates at the party convention. Many of these proposals would needlessly weaken our system of self-government at a time when Utah is a national example for conducting good elections, in large part due to prior reforms.
When H.B. 172 passed in 2012, Utah counties could opt in to an all-mail system where every registered voter received a ballot by mail that they could return via the postal system or in person. The entire state adopted this system by 2019, making Utah one of the pioneers of this method that has now spread throughout the country. This recent election provided more evidence that mail-based elections increase turnout while making voting easier.
Preliminary results show that approximately 85% of Utah voters voted via a mail ballot. A recent Deseret News/Hinckley Institute of Politics poll conducted by HarrisX suggests that 75% of Utahns, including 72% of Republicans, have some degree of confidence that the mail ballots are counted correctly. Actual evidence of fraud in Utah via the mail system is limited to a handful of cases. This comes amid rising voter turnout, which reached a record high of 90% of registered voters in 2020 and is likely to remain high.
As the Deseret News Editorial Board has stated, the proposed reforms to the mail-in voting system seek “to solve a problem that doesn’t exist.” The actual effect would be to harm participation by making voting harder and less accessible with no discernible gain. Concerns about postmarks, signatures and even voter ID for mail voters can all be addressed while leaving the universal mail-in system intact, but many of the proposals currently under consideration miss the mark.
In particular, the proposal to create a secretary of state position to oversee the election, as well as the one to exempt candidates with a supermajority of convention delegates from the primary process, are worrying for both their motivation and effects.
Lawmakers in favor of the change to a secretary of state system cited allegations of conflicts of interest on the part of the lieutenant governor in the gubernatorial contest as motivation. But the complaints of those who lost an election should not be misconstrued as evidence of a real problem. Certainly, they shouldn’t be the motivation for a major change to our electoral system that will expand the government at the taxpayers’ expense.
Similarly, the move to allow candidates to bypass the primary seems motivated by the complaints of individuals who lost their primary race after winning at the Republican convention. But these individuals lost simply because they were not popular enough with the broader Republican electorate, which is how the system should work. This change would dramatically weaken participation by shutting out primary voters while shielding candidates from competition if they can win over a few thousand delegates.
Changes to increase the transparency of qualifying for the ballot are welcome. But other reforms should focus on making it easier for more candidates to get involved and more inclusive of the broad electorate. The proposed reforms accomplish the opposite.
It is always worthwhile to pursue better elections and strengthen participation. But Utahns and our legislators would be wise to remember that not all change is progress.