Utah Legislature Watch

Kathy Dopp on Utah Election Law Bills Being Considered

Please contact your Utah legislatures about these election law changes
http://www.utah.gov/government/legislative.html

These are the bills that I have reviewed and my advice on whether or not to support or oppose them:

HB126 – OPPOSE STRONGLY – Photo Voter ID Requirement. This bill requires a Utah photo ID or a federally-issued photo ID to vote and prohibits any county or municipal photo ID from being used to vote. This bill will also require that your address match in the motor vehicle and the voter registration databases.  This bill disadvantages anyone who tends to move around a lot such as college students living in Utah, persons living in recreational vehicles or persons who move often for work, and also disenfranchises the elderly and the poor who do not own cars or have driver’s licenses. This bill requires a Utah
driver’s license or Utah photo ID issued by the motor vehicle department or a photo ID issued by the federal government to vote. This bill also is written to act as a poll tax of $18 because to vote it will cost money to obtain a Utah photo ID uness a voter fills out forms to be declared “Indigent” allowing the motor vehicle department to review Tax Commission income tax returns of the potential voter.  A photo ID requirement will disenfranchise hundreds, if not thousands of voters in Utah in order to solve a nonproblem.  Voter fraud is detectable, and can be prosecuted and all research shows that it occurs in less than a dozen cases in any State overall in any election.

HB 44 – OPPOSE allows “absentee ballot only” district elections violating Utah’s constitutional requirement for a secret ballot by forcing voters to cast ballots at home where they may be subjected to voter coercion, vote buying, or ballots voter fraud.  Also absentee ballot processing in Utah does not guarantee ballot privacy at the county election offices.

SB 25 – OPPOSE – This bill sets up an online voter registration bill that only allows persons with a valid Utah photo ID issued by Utah motor vehicle department to register to vote online. It also allows the motor vehicle dept to share your electronic signature file and driver’s license information with the County Clerks and the Lt. Governor. It raises all sorts of new attack points for identity theft in Utah without any mention of how all the new attack avenues for identity theft are guarded against.

SB27 – ?? – Aagard/Knudson Makes some necessary changes to Utah election statute but then also makes changes to the section 20A-4-107 on provisional balloting that is ambiguous.

I cannot tell from the statute and the bill SB27 whether it is left to the discretion of individual county clerks to count provisional ballots that are not cast in the precinct where the voter lives or it is illegal in Utah to count such provisional ballots. The problem is that it is often the fault of election officials and poll workers, not voters, when a voter casts a ballot on the wrong precinct’s ballot, yet often none of the votes cast on such ballots, not even the votes for federal and state-level contests are counted because such ballots would have to be counted manually.  Manual counting of paper ballots is actually quicker than feeding ballots into a precinct-based opti-scan machine.  This portion of the statute/bill is particularly
troubling if it is being left up to individual county clerks to treat different voters differently by counting some, but not all, such
ballots.

HB43 – SUPPORT – Allows municipal and special elections to share poll locations and poll workers

HB 48 – OK.  puts the limit from 100 down to 75 words for titles of ballot question amendments so that it can fit on the touchscreens better.

HB 49 – SUPPORT – Voter Challenge Amendments. A well-balanced bill that solves some of the problems of deliberate attempts to disenfranchise voters by political campaigns.

HJR8 – SUPPORT. Joint Resolution Regarding Secret Ballot Right.

SB164 SUPPORT – makes it easier for the county clerks to register voters.

SJR8 – SUPPORT – makes common sense requirements pertaining to persons appointed to fill mid-term vacancies in the office of senator or representative

HB 56 Seems OK. Makes date changes for candidacy filings

HB24 Early Voting Amendments – seems OK It changes the requirements for number and placement of polling locations

All bill texts are provided here:
http://www.le.state.ut.us/asp/billsintro/SubResults.asp?Listbox4=00245

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Kathy Dopp
http://utahcountvotes.org
http://electionmathematics.org
http://kathydopp.com/serendipity/

The material expressed herein is the informed  product of the author’s fact-finding and investigative efforts. Dopp is a Mathematician, Expert in election audit mathematics and procedures; in exit poll discrepancy analysis

Post-Election Vote Count Audit
A Short Legislative & Administrative Proposal

http://electionmathematics.org//ucvAnalysis/US/paper-audits/Vote-Count-Audit-Bill-2009.pdf

History of Confidence Election Auditing Development & Overview of Election Auditing Fundamentals

http://electionarchive.org/ucvAnalysis/US/paper-audits/History-of-Election-Auditing-Development.pdf

Voters Have Reason to Worry
http://utahcountvotes.org/UT/UtahCountVotes-ThadHall-Response.pdf