As we review these issues, I’d urge you to consider them at the local level, and not what you might believe about national policy. On questions such as signature gathering as a path to get on the ballot in Utah, or mail-in ballots within the County, consider whether you think there are significant problems or widespread fraud within our own community.
Signature Gathering
Utah is one of only a handful of states that use the Caucus Convention system to nominate candidates for elected office. In such a system, we first have a neighborhood caucus at which we elect delegates to represent our neighborhoods at the County and State Conventions. At the Convention, the delegates vote for all the candidates declared for a position. When the caucus-convention path was originally established, the Parties stipulated that if a candidate obtained 80% or more of the delegates’ votes at convention, he/she was declared the nominee without a primary. This long-standing 80% threshold was lowered by both major political parties in Utah to 70% in the early 1970s, and to 60% by the Utah Democratic Party in 1996 and by the Utah Republican Party in 1999.
In 2014, Utah established “dual paths to the ballot” via SB54, which establishes a second path to the ballot outside of the convention process: gathering enough verified signatures from registered voters in their districts. Once candidates meet the signature threshold, a primary must be held regardless of the convention results. Previous polling has found that Utahns strongly prefer the existing system of dual paths to the ballot, with only 17% of Republican voters favoring the nominees being chosen exclusively through the caucus convention path. The Republican Party, on the other hand, strongly opposes SB54 and is frequently making efforts to overturn it, since it allows candidates to appear on the Republican ticket outside of the party-controlled path simply by gathering signatures.
Proponents of signature gathering argue that it allows for wider representation of the electorate and higher voter participation (as opposed to the more limited group of elected delegates), where registered voters get an opportunity to weigh in more directly on which candidate is selected, either as the party nominee or as the victor of an election. For example, in the 2024 gubernatorial election, Phil Lyman was the party nominee winning 67.54% of the delegate vote at convention, compared to Spencer Cox’s 32.46%. Meanwhile, Spencer Cox went the signature gathering route to qualify for the ballot. In the 2024 general election, Spencer Cox won with 52.89% of the popular vote, compared to Phil Lyman’s 13.57%.
Opponents of SB54, such as the Utah Republican Party, argue that signature gathering allows candidates to “buy their way” into an election by hiring outside signature gatherers to collect signatures on their behalf. They also argue that it bypasses local party delegates and that candidates who qualify this way are less bound to the concerns of delegates selected at the caucus meetings who will be voting for candidates at convention.
Mail-in Ballots
Mail-In Voting in Utah County
Utah has operated a vote-by-mail system for decades, making it one of the most experienced states in the country at administering mail ballots. Universal vote-by-mail began gradually in the 1990s when remote Utah counties started experimenting with it; by 2019, every county in the state was participating, and the system went fully statewide in 2020. A survey of 27 Utah counties conducted by Weber County Clerk Ricky Hatch found that around 97% of Utah voters used the state’s vote-by-mail system in the June 2024 primary, with 41% returning ballots via USPS, 56% via secure drop box, and 3% casting ballots in person.
Public support for mail-in voting among Utahns remains high, though with notable partisan variation. A Deseret News/Hinckley Institute of Politics poll conducted by HarrisX in October 2024 found that 75% of registered Utah voters were confident that mail-in votes are counted as intended — 35% “very confident” and 39% “somewhat confident.” Confidence was highest among Democrats (92%) and fell to 72% among Republicans and independents, with that partisan gap widening further when respondents were asked specifically about federal election outcomes. A separate poll by the conservative Sutherland Institute found even broader baseline confidence: 87% of Utah voters said they were “confident” their ballots are counted accurately.
Despite high general satisfaction with mail voting, the Sutherland Institute survey found that additional voter ID requirements would increase election confidence more than any other single change. Deseret News That tension between convenience and verification is central to ongoing debates in the Utah legislature. The Utah legislature passed HB 300 in 2025, replacing signature verification with a voter ID number requirement; voters must now request a mail-in ballot once every eight years and ballots must be received by 8 p.m. on election night.
Concerns Raised by Utah County Clerk Aaron Davidson
Utah County has been a particular flashpoint in statewide debates over mail ballot security. Clerk Aaron Davidson has been a vocal critic of returning ballots through the U.S. Postal Service, arguing that drop boxes are more secure. Davidson told the Deseret News that he tracked how politicians — including state legislators — cast their ballots, whether by mail, drop box, or in person, and that he publicized Sen. Mike McKell’s method of voting during the 2024 primary because McKell had encouraged voters to return ballots via USPS without paying postage.
Utah County Attorney Jeff Gray confirmed his office opened an investigation into Davidson’s tracking of elected officials’ voting methods, describing it as “concerning” while noting that the election laws around what information may be disclosed are complicated and may require a legislative fix. State Rep. Stephanie Gricius also told the Deseret News that Davidson had mentioned to her — in a passing exchange at a state senate debate — that she had voted by mail in the primary and encouraged her to use a drop box instead, which she found “unsettling.”
The Salt Lake Tribune reported that these events prompted lawmakers to consider legislation that would make it a class B misdemeanor for county clerks to look up ballot information for non-official reasons — a bill introduced in part by one of the lawmakers whose own ballot information Davidson had accessed.
Noncitizen Voter Audit Results
Concerns about noncitizen voter registration have been a focus of both state-level and national Republican advocacy. In Utah, the results of a comprehensive audit tell a clear story. Lt. Governor Deidre Henderson’s office reviewed all 2,069,640 active registered voters in Utah and found one confirmed noncitizen — who had never voted — who was subsequently removed from the rolls. More than 99.9% of Utah voters were found to be verifiably U.S. citizens, and 486 remaining active voters had incomplete or inaccurate registration information; each was contacted and asked to update their records.
Separately, prior to the full citizenship review, Henderson’s office discovered that a state website had inadvertently allowed users to proceed through voter registration even if they acknowledged they were not U.S. citizens; four noncitizens registered through that loophole in 2018 or 2019 before it was fixed. All four were removed or have since been removed from the rolls and referred for investigation. Henderson’s assessment: “The bottom line is, there is not a widespread problem. You hear people say hundreds or thousands — it’s just not.”
The legislature has continued to pursue additional safeguards, and proposed bills in their 2026 session that would require proof of citizenship to vote, make certain previously private voter records public, and require the governor to conduct ongoing audits of voter rolls for citizenship.
Partisan Elections
There are some elections in Utah which are partisan, and some which are not. For example, Utah municipal elections are nonpartisan. On the other hand, a bill passed in 2016 made school board elections partisan beginning in 2018. While it was blocked by a lower court, the state’s Supreme Court upheld the law in 2019, reinstating the law making state school board elections partisan.
Proponents argue that partisan elections are necessary to properly vet candidates. The caucus system results in delegates looking deeply at candidates’ policy stances on issues. On the other hand, critics fear that such a process might lead to an educational system driven by a single political ideology influencing curriculum and policy in state schools.
This last year, however, the Utah County Republican Party narrowly approved a measure to endorse candidates in municipal elections this year. The resolution was originally rejected by the Central Committee (a body made up of precinct chairs and vice chairs), but a modified motion to try endorsing candidates for only last year’s election (a one year experiment) was tied, with the Committee Chair Cristy Henshaw casting the decisive ballot in favor to break the tie. In order to secure the party endorsement, a candidate needs to sign a “Candidate Accountability Form” in which they pledge to support only Republican candidates for any partisan public office, and after convention, if they support any candidate that is not the party nominee, they will be ineligible to run as a Republican in the next election cycle for any Utah County Republican Party office or partisan office elected by the party.
The County Party Chair has explained that their endorsements highlight the most ideologically aligned candidate for their members.