Camille Topham is your typical American voter who sought to cast her vote in Utah’s June 25 primary elections.
Using the Beehive State’s universal mail-in voting system, the Iron County resident and her family reportedly deposited their ballots into a local post box on June 23. Given that this was a day before voters are required by state law to have their mail ballots postmarked to be counted, Topham was surprised to later receive a letter informing her and her family their ballots would not be tabulated because they were not postmarked by the specified deadline.
“I was shocked,” Topham said during Iron County’s Monday commissioners meeting. “I have been voting in Iron County for 33 years, since I was 18. I have never had anything like this happen.”
As it turns out, Topham and her family weren’t the only ones who experienced this problem. In the weeks since the election, hundreds of primary electors in Utah’s southwestern counties have come forward claiming their votes weren’t counted due to the aforementioned postmark issue, despite their alleged compliance with state law.
What Happened
The problem first arose late last week when Iron County Commissioner Paul Cozzens announced in a Friday Facebook post that he learned more than 400 ballots “have not been counted because the [U.S. Postal Service] post marked many of them late by several days.”
County Clerk Jon Whittaker reportedly confirmed this to be true and further claimed that neighboring Washington County similarly identified over 300 ballots “in question.” He also “acknowledged that seven additional counties south of Fillmore with zip codes starting with 847 are all affected by this same issue,” but could not verify “the number of ballots in those counties that may be in question,” according to St. George News.
The issue appears to stem from how mail is processed by USPS for these nine Utah counties. According to the local outlet, mail processing for the region “has shifted” from Provo, Utah, to Las Vegas, Nevada, “where it is scanned, barcoded, and postmarked.” Whittaker hypothesized this change and “the maddening 340 mile journey all mail must take to the Vegas sort center and back” produced a situation in which ballots mailed prior to or on June 24 received postmarks after the required deadline.
“Some of the ballots Whittaker received had hand stamps dated before June 25, with one as early as June 20,” the report reads. “However, despite these early stamps, they were subjected to ‘Vegas cancellations’ because they were processed in Las Vegas after midnight on June 25.”
The report defines hand-stamped ballots as those “individuals bring their ballot to the mail center and request immediate postmarking by the postal carrier.” Whittaker claimed the “ballots he received that were hand-stamped before June 25 were counted.”
“I don’t think anybody knew this could happen [or] had any understanding” it could impact as much as “one-third of our state’s counties,” Utah GOP Vice-Chair Kim Coleman told The Federalist.
Coleman said it’s unknown whether this issue has happened on this large of a scale before or how long “that much of the state has been part of the Las Vegas processing center.”
“If it’s a recent change that captured more of our state, there should [have been] some notification process” in place so local officials were aware potential issues could occur, Coleman said.
In July 2020, Thomas J. Marshall, USPS’s general counsel and executive vice president, sent letters to leading election officials in 46 states and Washington, D.C., warning “certain deadlines for requesting and casting mail-in ballots are incongruous with the Postal Service’s delivery standards,” and that the “mismatch creates a risk that ballots requested near the deadline under state law will not be returned by mail in time to be counted” as specified by states’ respective laws.
Utah was among five states that did not receive such a letter, according to The Washington Post.
No Accountability for Voters
Cozzens pledged to vote against certifying Iron County’s election results until the postmark issue was resolved. “Too many voters have vehemently contested the discrepancy, insisting they sent their ballots well before the cutoff date, with some claiming to have mailed them as early as June 22. I would not be keeping my oath of office if I certify that election,” he reportedly said in an interview with local media outlets.
While the vote to certify Iron County’s election results was originally scheduled for Monday, the locality’s commissioners delayed the vote until Tuesday “to confer with state election officials and see if there is any wiggle room to count [the affected] ballots,” according to The Salt Lake Tribune. Utah law stipulates that counties must submit election results to the lieutenant governor “within 14 days after the date of the election.”
In a 2-1 decision, the Iron County Commission voted Tuesday evening to certify the locality’s election results, with Cozzens casting the single “no” vote. Commissioner Mike Bleak and Sheriff Kenneth Carpenter, who temporarily assumed the position due to Commissioner Marilyn Wood’s absence, expressed frustration that the 400 votes in question could not be investigated, but voted to certify anyway. Bleak defended his decision by citing the deadline required under state law, while Carpenter expressed concern the county’s “9,000-plus” votes would not be counted if the commission voted against certification.
“This sucks,” Bleak reportedly said. “At the end of the day, we’re a nation of rules that is governed by the rule of law, and in this particular case, the rule of law is very clear and there is no wiggle room.”
In a statement provided to The Federalist, Cozzens noted how the allegedly disenfranchised voters are “willing to sign a sworn, notarized affidavit, and many already have, attesting that they did comply with election law.” He also cited Utah law, which states: “If it clearly appears to the election officer and board of canvassers that certain matters are omitted or that clerical mistakes exist in election returns received, the election officer shall correct the omissions and mistakes.”
“The right to vote has been paid for by the blood of hundreds of thousands who have come before us,” Cozzens said. “Silencing these voices dishonors their sacrifices and undermines the democratic process.”
Potential Impact on Contested Congressional Race
Utah’s USPS postmark debacle is even more concerning when considering its potential effect on the outcome of a hotly contested congressional primary.
Following Iron County’s Tuesday vote, Rep. Celeste Maloy now leads challenger Colby Jenkins in the race to become the GOP nominee for the Beehive State’s 2nd Congressional District by 214 votes, a 0.2-point margin. Utah law permits candidates who lost by a 0.25-point margin or less to request an official recount after the state conducts its canvass, which is expected to occur on July 22.
Speaking with The Federalist Tuesday morning, Jenkins campaign manager Greg Powers indicated Jenkins will file a request for a recount after the state’s canvass is complete, at which point the campaign will try to have the uncounted ballots in question adjudicated.
“It’s likely that there would be a legal challenge [from voters] to make sure that those votes are counted,” Powers said. “Win, lose or draw, we’ll accept whatever the result is, but we just want to make sure all the votes are counted.”
Pitfalls of Mail-In Voting
Powers noted how Utah’s primary conundrum exposed the flaws with its all-mail voting system.
“With all-mail voting, we’re counting on the Post Office, and the Post Office is notoriously a giant federal government bureaucracy that’s not running efficiently,” Powers said. “We’ve turned our elections over to it, and now we see the consequences of that.”
“We’re a few hundred votes away, and there could be hundreds of ballots left out there,” and whether Jenkins wins the seat could “hang on whether or not the Postal Service did their job properly,” he added.
Powers said the Jenkins campaign believes Utah’s election laws should be changed to where the standard requirement is electors voting “in person” on “paper ballots” on Election Day.
“If you need an absentee ballot for some reason for that year, you can request one individually with cause,” Powers said. “But having the Postal Service be in charge of this? No.”
Registered Utah voters are automatically sent a mail ballot ahead of any given election, according to Ballotpedia.
Neither House Speaker Mike Schultz nor Senate President J. Stuart Adams responded to The Federalist’s requests for comment on whether they believe the problems in Utah’s June primary demonstrate the pitfalls associated with an all-mail voting system. Neither official responded when pressed if they plan to advance bills in the next legislative session that limit mail-in voting and move Utah toward a traditional in-person model used by other states.
