A Utah lawmaker is trying to get rid of the state’s mail-in voting system with a bill that would also require independent audits following elections and demand that officials post images of each counted ballot online for people to check.
The legislation sponsored by Rep. Phil Lyman comes as a ballot initiative to end the state’s vote-by-mail system appears to be faltering.
There’s been a push by Republicans across the nation to restrict or end mail-in voting in the wake of former President Donald Trump’s baseless allegations that the method leads to widespread fraud.
In Utah, GOP leaders such as Gov. Spencer Cox and Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson have defended the state’s mail-in system as safe and secure. And Henderson, whose office oversees elections in the state, said she opposes arbitrary measures that make it harder for citizens to vote — for example, by eliminating all options except casting a ballot in person on Election Day.
The bill, HB371, sponsored by Lyman, R-Blanding, would return the state to a system primarily reliant on voting at a polling place. Absentee ballots would be allowed in limited cases for people who can’t vote in-person because of old age, hospitalization or disability or because they’ll be out-of-state.
The legislation also requires an independent audit for results in each federal and gubernatorial general election race in which the victor won by less than 15 percentage points. As part of the audit, clerks in the randomly selected precincts would have to hand-count ballots and compare them with the reported vote tally.
Lyman also wants cameras to record the vote-counting process in all elections, with images of each ballot posted online “in a manner that the ballot may be viewed, and the votes on the ballot counted, by any individual.” The ballot images would have to stay online for at least a year after the election, according to the bill.
The legislation will now be considered in the Utah House of Representatives.
This story will be updated.
from The Salt Lake Tribune https://ift.tt/ngvMaZC
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