SALT LAKE CITY — Some Utah voters have received two ballots; some received a ballot for someone who no longer lives at their address.

Sanpete County voters received ballots without a signature line. In June, Duchesne County voters received ballots for the wrong political party before the mixup was corrected.

President Donald Trump has used problems like these to argue that universal mail-in voting is a bad idea that could be manipulated to fraudulently swing the presidential election. But these examples have been shown to be rare occurrences and do not lead to the manipulation of an election.

Utah has more experience with mail-in voting than most states, and Utah county clerks continue to stand by mail-in voting as a safe, efficient and reliable way to exercise our democratic rights. But why?

Trial and error

Washington County Clerk/Auditor Kim Hafen said it's Utah's years of experience with mail-in voting that gives him confidence in the system.

"This isn't our first time doing this, and it's a good thing it's not," Hafen told KSL.com. "I feel bad for some of the states that are doing this, voting by mail for the first time, because it's a process. And we've gotten better at it. We've streamlined it and gotten more efficient because we've used it for several elections now. So, I'm glad we're not doing it for the first time. I don't think we've had issues with previous elections, and I don't think we'll have issues with this election."

Many states are trying to expand their vote-by-mail offerings this year because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Salt Lake County Clerk Sherrie Swensen said the degree of difficulty for those other states will depend on whether they've already been using a robust absentee ballot program or not. The quality of a mail-in system, she said, is only as good as the quality of a state's voter database. Utah clerks keep close tabs on the National Change of Address database, which helps them keep ballots to wrong addresses at a minimum.

"If it's a vote-by-mail program, and it's the first time they're using it," Swensen said, "they have to be aware that there's, perhaps, more people that will not use it the first time and may not get their ballot the first time. So they have to be prepared for those individuals showing up in person."

Lt. Gov. Spencer Cox, whose office oversees Utah elections, spoke to NPR earlier this month and said he's confident in Utah's system because it hasn't been created "overnight," but rather implemented "over the course of the last 10 years." Clerks keep track of address changes and even death certificates to keep voter rolls current, he explained.

"I can't speak for other states," he said. "I don't know that they're doing those same things. I'm really glad I don't have to do this in the course of just a few months. It would be very difficult to pull off."

Sign on the line

If a ballot is sent to the wrong address, though, Swensen said it's very hard for a voter to pass off a stranger's signature as their own. Every signed ballot in Utah is compared against voter signatures already on file. "They're not going to be able to replicate that voter's signature," she said.

KSL TV investigators recently explored how an unmatched signature could keep a ballot from being counted. But Swensen emphasized to KSL.com that signatures don't have to be identical to the ones on file to be counted; she said her staff is looking to match the handwriting rather than the details of the signature itself. If a voter signed their registration with their middle initial, for instance, but didn't include that initial on their ballot affidavit, that shouldn't cause the signature to be rejected as long as the handwriting is the same.

"(Voters) don't need to be concerned that their ballot would be rejected because of the variation of the way they sign their name," she said. "It's a handwriting analysis." For Utahns who want to double-check, however, they can always use the ballot-tracking feature on the lieutenant governor's website to see if their vote has been received and counted.

When county clerks do find handwriting discrepancies in signatures, there's usually a simple explanation. In a June forum on voting by mail, Utah County Clerk/Auditor Amelia Powers Gardner described an incident where she'd caught a woman who signed a ballot for her husband. Cox told NPR about well-meaning parents who sometimes sign ballots for their children.

"We did not see widespread fraud," he said in response to a question about the 2018 election, when about 90% of Utah's votes were cast by mail. "In fact, it's kind of funny — the fraud we did see is very unintentional. It tends to often be moms whose kids are at school or whose kids are on missions for their church, who get the ballot and talk to them, fill it out for them and send it in."

Such incidents might be innocent, officials say, but they're still against the law. No one can lawfully sign a ballot for somebody else, even a family member. Cox said those well-meaning parents "get a polite call from the county attorney letting them know that that is fraudulent and illegal, and that they could go to jail for that."

Printer pros

Swensen said Salt Lake County has avoided the ballot problems seen in some other counties largely because of its close working relationship with the company that prints its ballots.

Washington County uses Washington-based K&H Election Services; Salt Lake County used to use K&H, but now works with Phoenix-based Runbeck Election Services. Swensen said Runbeck sends the county a final proof of its ballots before they're printed, which is then inspected by several county elections employees. That ensures that ballots aren't missing critical components when they hit voters' mailboxes.

"They've got a good track record," Swensen said of Runbeck. "They've come through for us and done an awesome job."

So ultimately, it's the state's experience with mail-in voting and the safeguards put in place that make Utah's county clerks confident that — at least here in Utah — voting by mail is safe. And they hope voters will feel the same way, because both Hafen and Swensen want to avoid a crush of in-person voters come Election Day.

"The vote centers, both in-person early and Election Day, are really meant for people who did not receive a ballot," Swenson said. She said pandemic precautions will make lines longer and change the whole in-person experience from what voters are used to. "If there's 20 people in line, which normally wouldn't be anything, it will be a 120-foot line" because of distancing, she said.

Washington County's only in-person polling place will be the Dixie Center, Hafen said, a large space he feels will be safer for voters. "I just hope that people will trust the (mail) system and not go to the voting centers to vote and stand in line," he said.

Swensen said national politicians with doubts about mail-in voting would feel better if they saw Utah's system at work.

"I'm sure that the people who have doubts about it have never toured our election management center and seen the security precautions and the process that we have in place," she said. "If they did, they would be very impressed how carefully we account for every ballot that comes through our system. We make sure everything is counted and accounted for. It's just a wonderful system."

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