SALT LAKE CITY — Earlier this month, during the weekly press conference to discuss the coronavirus outbreak, Gov. Gary Herbert invited Justin Lee, director of elections, to speak.

Like it has with everything else, the COVID-19 pandemic has forced people to adapt to how and even when they vote. Some states have had to revamp their whole voting system to try to keep voters separate from each other. But for Utah, it is old hat. In fact, Lee was there to ensure voters that they will be heard.

"Voting by mail is safe, it's secure and every vote is counted," Lee said.

Utah is expecting a record turnout this election — just hopefully not at the polls. In fact, Lee is encouraging everyone to vote in a way where they don't end up standing in a line. That means putting ballots, which were sent out last week, in drop boxes, back into a mailbox, or dropping them off at their polling location.

And with few people still undecided, Lee sees no reason to wait until Nov. 3 comes around to send ballots in.

"We've heard there are not a lot of undecided voters at this point, so we would encourage people to vote as early as they can," he told KSL.com.

There are a couple of advantages to voting early: It helps avoid long lines on Election Day, which is always inconvenient; but with COVID numbers continuing to spike, it's also dangerous, and it helps the state get a head start on election results.

"A lot of people are concerned about getting good election results on election night, and the more ballots we have in, the better those results will be on election night," Lee said.

This year, Lee doesn't see a lot of advantages to waiting — especially if you've already made up your mind about who you are going to vote for on Nov. 3.

"You run the risk, if you're going to go stand in line, of being in a long line," Lee said. "There are people who wonder if something's going to happen during the weeks before an election that might change someone's opinion. But even that being said, if you wait to the end you could still put that ballot in a dropbox."

Lee said the state has heard from a "very small group" of people who have concerns about mail-in ballot security, but he doesn't see any reason to be alarmed.

"This will be our third election this year that we will have run by mail and haven't had any major security issues or issues of ballots not being counted," he said. "We have been doing this for years."

The state has had multiple discussions with local U.S. Postal Service officials leading up to the election and the USPS is confident it can handle the volume of ballots — because this is not a new thing for the state.

To reduce the risk of a ballot not arriving before the state's deadline, the USPS has suggested voters should "act early."

But Lee said if voters were concerned about mail-in ballot security, they should still use a dropbox or "even just take it to the polls and drop it off if that makes them feel better. We just want to avoid standing in those lines."

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