'Election integrity' emerges as issue in southwestern Utah as 2022 midterms approach

Paper ballots are counted as members of the Republican Party vote in a special election in St. George on July 20, 2021.
Paper ballots are counted as members of the Republican Party vote in a special election in St. George on July 20, 2021.

Republicans nationwide have cast doubts on election results since former President Donald Trump declared his 2020 election loss as “stolen,” but the sentiment has filtered its way down to even local elections held in the reddest of red Republican strongholds.

Election integrity has become a key issue ahead of the 2022 midterms in Washington County, Utah, where St. George rates as among the most Republican-dominated metro areas in the country.

A close-run race in the GOP primary for a seat in the state Legislature led a group of the losing candidates' supporters to demand a recount by hand, and backers have organized in recent months to push for widespread changes to state and local election laws, proposing a move away from vote-counting machines and away fromvoting by mail.

Many are backing a write-in campaign against the county clerk, arguing more could be done to make sure each ballot is counted fairly. The write-in candidate has vowed to do away with voting by mail countywide.

Campaign signs peppered the lawn outside a building at Southern Utah University before a Republican Party primary debate on June 13.
Campaign signs peppered the lawn outside a building at Southern Utah University before a Republican Party primary debate on June 13.

Supporters of the movement often cite dubious claims about voter rolls and election-machine hacking, and no one has presented concrete evidence of fraud or wrongdoing on the part of election officials, but area politicians have said they are listening closely and feel that any widespread distrust in elections is a problem that needs to be addressed.

Last week, all three members of the county commission voted unanimously for a resolution calling on state lawmakers and state election officials to adopt new election procedures, including the hiring of a third-party auditor to conduct a hand count as part of the audit.

The commissioners say in the letter that they “recognize many in our community are concerned about election integrity. We believe we have a responsibility to demonstrate the fairness and accuracy of the election process.”

This momentum behind “election integrity” as a major concern marks a significant change from past election years, with many local conservatives voicing distrust despite Republicans controlling both the state and local ends of elections across southwestern Utah. The GOP has controlled every partisan elective seat in Washington County for decades and Republican candidates traditionally secure more than 70% of the vote in general elections.

Rage against voting machines

Poll workers wait at the Dixie Convention Center, one of only two in-person voting locations that were open during the Washington County primary election on June 28. The majority of voters in Washington County and the rest of Utah mail in paper ballots sent to registered voters out of county clerks' offices.
Poll workers wait at the Dixie Convention Center, one of only two in-person voting locations that were open during the Washington County primary election on June 28. The majority of voters in Washington County and the rest of Utah mail in paper ballots sent to registered voters out of county clerks' offices.

The only Republican-controlled state to embrace vote-by-mail for all elections and to defend its use despite Trump’s insistence that the practice made voter fraud easier, Utah remains an outlier with its unabashed enthusiasm for making it easier to cast a ballot.

Vote-by-mail maintains the support of most in state leadership, and the practice has been praised as being partly responsible for record-high rates of turnout in recent elections. But the topic has grown more controversial since Trump’s loss, and some state lawmakers have declared support for making voters return in-person to voting booths. There were more than a dozen attempts proposed at the Utah Legislature over the past two years, including one measure that would have scrapped vote-by-mail entirely. Those measures mostly failed, but laws passed in 2022 did make for stricter voter identification laws and require 24-hour video surveillance of ballot drop boxes

In Washington County, the hottest topic has been the way votes are counted. The county, like most in Utah, uses counting machines that feed paper ballots through and mark the places where voters marked their votes, similar to the Scantron machines used in schools. Audits have shown them to be accurate, but now some voters say they question the process.

Willie Billings, who ran and lost by just seven votes in the Republican Party primary for Utah's 72nd House District, speaks during a debate hosted by the Washington County Republican Party at the Dixie Convention Center on May 17.
Willie Billings, who ran and lost by just seven votes in the Republican Party primary for Utah's 72nd House District, speaks during a debate hosted by the Washington County Republican Party at the Dixie Convention Center on May 17.

Earlier this year, the Republican primary race for Utah’s 72nd House district came down to a difference of just seven votes between Joe Ellison and Willie Billings. Ellison was declared the winner but Billings asked for a recount and specifically requested the count be done by hand.

Election officials declined to do so and instead followed state recount statute, re-scanning and re-tabulating the vote counts. Afterward, an audit was performed using 1,000 random ballots, checking to see if the marks left on each paper ballot matched with the machine counts. Every ballot matched.

Billings initially filed a lawsuit disputing the process but withdrew it shortly afterward, saying it would cost too much to pursue. State election officials argued it had been based on unfounded accusations and hearsay.

Utah Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson, whose office oversees state elections administration.
Utah Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson, whose office oversees state elections administration.

“Premised on a flawed analysis that neglected key facts, the lawsuit’s accusations fell flat,” said Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson, whose office oversees state elections administration. “Ballots in this election were counted and publicly audited twice. Each audit confirmed the accuracy of the election results.”

Voters losing confidence

Ballots could be cast or dropped off at the Dixie Convention Center was only one of two in-person voting locations open for the Washington County primary election. June 28, 2022.
Ballots could be cast or dropped off at the Dixie Convention Center was only one of two in-person voting locations open for the Washington County primary election. June 28, 2022.

Since then, a small but dedicated movement has built up accusing county officials of failing to ensure free and fair elections. Groups of people wear t-shirts with phrases like “Zero Election Integrity” to county meetings, and Facebook groups have gathered steam.

Ron Woodbury, a St. George resident who has been active in local politics and on social media, ran a Facebook poll earlier this month asking respondents whether they trust elections in Washington County. Fifty-five percent responded “no.”

The survey likely pulled from a self-selecting crowd, going out on Facebook and not accounting for local voter demographics or subgroups. But it reached more than 2,100 people and was completed by 260, suggesting there is a sizable group of people who distrust local elections, Woodbury said, noting that he saw it as representative of a larger split among local conservatives that he’d witnessed in recent years.

“I would just like to see a little more transparency,” he said. “It seems like everybody came into their separate camps over the last four our five elections and it seems like nobody trusts anybody.”

Washington County Clerk Susan Lewis, left, County Commissioner Adam Snow, center, and Lesa Sandberg, the chair of the county Republican Party, pose for a photo after Lewis and Snow were appointed to office during a special election on July 20, 2021.
Washington County Clerk Susan Lewis, left, County Commissioner Adam Snow, center, and Lesa Sandberg, the chair of the county Republican Party, pose for a photo after Lewis and Snow were appointed to office during a special election on July 20, 2021.

It’s an issue that has become prevalent among conservatives across the U.S. Poll after poll since the 2020 election has shown a majority of Republicans believe the 2020 race was taken from Trump. In polls by CNN, Quinnipiac, the Economist and others, about three-quarters of Republican respondents say they believed President Joe Biden had won illegitimately, despite nearly two years of recounts, ballot reviews, expert examinations and court cases that say otherwise.

At the same time, increasing numbers of Republicans have indicated they don’t trust state and local elections either, with overall distrust in nearly every government-run operation rising sharply in the past year. A recent Gallup poll found that 60% of American adults had little or no faith in the federal government – the highest level of dissatisfaction since the survey was launched in 1972.

Hand counts and audits

A Washington County elections worker sorts ballots before they're scanned by a signature verification machine inside the county's ballot counting center in St. George.
A Washington County elections worker sorts ballots before they're scanned by a signature verification machine inside the county's ballot counting center in St. George.

The commissioners’ letter, formally passed as a resolution last week, spells out two major changes that they argue would quell at least some of voters’ worries.

One idea would be to have all counties provide summaries of each “batch” of votes, which would make it easier for an independent, third-party auditor to check ballots and verify the results via a hand-count.

The second requests that a new election commission be created to annually review and “implement measures” to strengthen and secure election processes.

“It just removes any questionable loophole that the machines don’t count accurately,” Commissioner Adam Snow said.

Snow noted that audits of machine counts have shown them to be 100% accurate but argued a hand-count audit could provide peace of mind for some.

Commissioner Victor Iverson said he hoped such steps would help take pressure off county election workers and volunteers who he said work tirelessly to make sure they do everything right but have been attacked for not doing enough.

“This is about asking the state legislature to give more evidence and more confidence to the voter that ballots are being handled properly and counted properly,” Iverson said.

Patricia Kent is photographed in a St. George-area parking lot where she worked to gather signatures for the Secure Vote Utah ballot initiative on Jan. 29. Kent has started a write-in campaign challenging the sitting Washington County Clerk, saying she doesn't trust state or local elections.
Patricia Kent is photographed in a St. George-area parking lot where she worked to gather signatures for the Secure Vote Utah ballot initiative on Jan. 29. Kent has started a write-in campaign challenging the sitting Washington County Clerk, saying she doesn't trust state or local elections.

The letter doesn’t spell out how such steps would be funded, though, and state election officials would need to administer such moves.

It also might not be enough to appease those who say they don't trust state or local election officials.

Patricia Kent, a retired school teacher and longtime political activist who lives in St. George, is waging a write-in campaign against sitting Washington County Clerk Susan Lewis, who was appointed to the office last year, arguing that Lewis and other county officials haven't done enough to make voters feel their votes actually count.

"I think it’s pandering. They are getting a lot of flak from the people and they are simply making it look like they are doing something," Kent said.

Kent, who isn't a Republican but a member of the Independent American Party, said that as the chairperson of a right-leaning advocacy group called the Liberty Action Coalition she has heard from thousands of residents who have doubts about the integrity of elections in Washington County and throughout Utah.

“People don’t trust what’s going on,” she said. “They don’t trust our elected officials, and it doesn’t matter which party. They are tired of being lied to and controlled.”

A representative from Henderson's office said they'd received the letter on Wednesday, and Henderson said she appreciated the commissioners' "desire to continually evaluate and improve our election process."

"To that end, my office has worked tirelessly with legislators and county clerks throughout the state to bolster public confidence, election security and voter access," she said.

David DeMille writes about southwestern Utah for The Spectrum & Daily News, a USA TODAY Network newsroom based in St. George. Follow him at @SpectrumDeMille or contact him at ddemille@thespectrum.com. To support and sustain this work, please subscribe today.

This article originally appeared on St. George Spectrum & Daily News: 'Election integrity' a growing issue ahead of 2022 midterm election