Estimated read time: 3-4 minutes
- Audit reveals election administration issues in Piute and Wayne counties.
- Key findings include inadequate camera coverage and violations during post-election audits.
- Officials promise to implement recommendations to improve election processes by 2026.
SALT LAKE CITY — A legislative audit found several issues with election administration in Piute and Wayne counties during the 2024 election cycle, saying both "lacked adequate camera coverage of ballot processing areas" and that both violated requirements during post-election audits.
The audit was conducted as part of a biennial audit of the entire state's election system, which found that as many as 1,400 voters who appeared deceased were on voter rolls in the state. During that process, auditors said they "identified significant deficiencies in election processes in Piute and Wayne counties," prompting a separate report with multiple recommendations for improvements.
"Although we did not observe anything that would negatively impact the results of an election, the failure in these counties to follow election law increases the risk of inaccurate or inappropriate election outcomes," auditors wrote in their report, which they presented to lawmakers Friday.
Auditors noted that Piute County officials violated chain of custody requirements for ballots by having only one election worker processing ballots at a time and that the county did not immediately batch cast votes when they were received. The county clerk also failed to make a ballot drop box available for voters in Marysvale, according to the report, which said three other municipalities had drop boxes that were not properly labeled.
"Because the towns use existing municipal drop boxes as ballot boxes, failing to mark them for elections leaves voters with little to no knowledge that they can drop ballots there," the audit says. "Unsurprisingly, the clerk reported that the county received no ballots via drop box in the June 2024 primary election."
Both Piute and Wayne counties lacked "adequate camera coverage" of ballot processing areas.
In Piute County, "specifically, the camera did not capture footage of the vault used for ballot storage, the clerk's desk space — where a lot of the ballot processing took place — or of a conference room across the hall where ballots were being scanned through a tabulation machine," auditors wrote.
Both counties also failed to properly reconcile ballot processing statistics and violated "multiple requirements" during post-election audits, the report states.
Auditors made the following recommendations for both counties to clean up their processes in the future:
- Piute County's clerk should "ensure all ballot collection handling, and processing is done with proper personnel," "that all active ballots are batched and tracked" according to law, that all municipalities in the county have ballot boxes, that ballot boxes "are properly marked as official ballot drop boxes during elections" and that the county improves camera coverage of ballot processing areas.
- That both counties "learn and execute the ballot reconciliation requirements" and "learn and execute the post-election audit requirements."
In a response, Piute County Clerk/Auditor Kali Gleave said she addressed several issues during the November 2024 general election and promised to "fully implement" those recommendations going forward. Gleave said she is "currently working with Marysvale town to ensure that a secure drop box is in that precinct and that it will be in place for the elections in 2026."
Wayne County Clerk/Auditor Felicia Snow said her office would implement the two recommendations for her county.
