After audit found 2 ‘deceased’ voters, Salt Lake County officials say they’re investigating

After a legislative audit released earlier this week flagged two ballots that were cast in 2023 by voters with names categorized as “deceased,” leaders of the county that auditors say those ballots came from say they’re taking the issue seriously. 

Salt Lake County Clerk Lannie Chapman and District Attorney Sim Gill issued a joint news release on Friday to “reaffirm” their “commitment to election integrity.” 

“Earlier this week, the Salt Lake County District Attorney’s Office received communication from the Salt Lake County Clerk’s Office regarding two ballots from the 2023 municipal election that appeared problematic and warranted investigation,” the news release said. “These ballots were fraudulently cast in the names of deceased individuals and were counted prior to the Clerk’s Office being informed of the voters’ deaths.”

While legislative auditors wrote in their report released Monday that they did not find “significant fraud in Utah’s election system,” they did find a variety of issues — including two matches with deceased voters who cast ballots in the 2023 municipal election. 

In total, the audit found 1,400 deceased voters that had not been removed from the state’s voter rolls over the past two years. Of those, only two were found to have cast ballots last year.

“Although the number of potential matches of deceased voters is small compared to Utah’s over 2 million registered voters, it still represents a significant lapse in fulfilling an explicit voter list maintenance requirement,” auditors wrote, calling on the Lt. Governor’s Office to do a better job of maintaining Utah’s voter rolls as it’s required to do under Utah law. 

Utah election audit finds no ‘significant fraud,’ but raises concern over voter roll maintenance

The audit prompted exasperation from one of Utah’s top legislative leaders, House Speaker Mike Schultz, R-Hooper, who posed several questions about the security of voting by mail. Ahead of the 2025 legislative session scheduled to begin next month, the audit’s findings may position Utah’s Republican-controlled Legislature to consider changes to Utah’s elections, which currently operate under a widespread, automatic vote-by-mail system that sends by-mail ballots to all active registered voters. 

According to the county’s press release, the Salt Lake County Clerk’s Office didn’t learn that those individuals were deceased until September 2024, after which the office “promptly launched an investigation before forwarding both cases to the District Attorney’s Office for potential criminal charges. Those investigations and reviews are in progress,” the news release said. 

“Maintaining public trust in our elections is paramount,” Salt Lake County Clerk Lannie Chapman said in a prepared statement. “We want Salt Lake County residents to know that we take these matters seriously and are committed to identifying and addressing any vulnerabilities in the election process.”

Salt Lake County District Attorney Sim Gill also issued a statement, saying voting is a “vital part of our democracy” and “any attempt to subvert that process through fraud will be aggressively prosecuted by this office.” 

“We appreciate the diligence of the Salt Lake County Clerk’s Office that helped to identify the alleged violation of the law through established processes that help to ensure the integrity of our elections,” Gill said. “The DA’s Office is committed to conducting a thorough investigation and to hold offenders who engage in criminal wrongdoing in elections accountable.”

While those two ballots under investigation were cast in November 2023, Salt Lake County officials said no votes were cast for either of those deceased voters during the 2024 elections. 

In the November 2023 elections, 160,273 votes were cast across Salt Lake County. Of those, 157,272 were cast by mail, and 3,001 were cast in person, according to the county. 

In Friday’s release, Salt Lake County officials said they remain “committed to collaborating with state and local partners to implement the audit’s recommendations and maintain the integrity of elections.”