State election review finds high signature rejection rates, other discrepancies in Utah County

The Utah County clerk — who has been a vocal critic of voting by mail — is facing calls from state election officials to improve his office’s election processes after a state review of the 2024 primary found some of his staff were “too strict” during ballot signature verification, “resulting in unnecessarily challenged ballots.”

The review by Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson’s office also found other discrepancies that could have potentially allowed some 19 voters to cast their ballots in person without ID verification. Though state election officials did not go as far as to raise concerns about voter fraud in the report released this week, they wrote there’s no way to verify that because at some polling places, the county poll workers counted more ballots than they reported identifying voters.

Those problems reconciling the number of ballots cast and voters that checked in at polling places were because of a new “fast cast” voter program Utah County implemented this year that lacked controls and was therefore “noncompliant” with state election code,” according to the report.

Utah County Clerk Aaron Davidson, in an interview with Utah News Dispatch on Tuesday, generally accepted most of the state’s recommendations to improve his office’s election processes, saying he’s already acted on most of them — but he took issue with the assertion that his office’s signature verification was “too strict.”



https://utahnewsdispatch.com/2024/09/17/state-election-review-high-signature-rejection-rates-utah-county/