Cache County employee charged with altering election document; report finds ‘widespread’ violations

An employee with the Cache County Clerk’s Office has been charged with using PDF editing software to alter an election document, just days after staff with Utah Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson’s office presented a scathing report to county officials detailing an “unprecedented lack of controls” and “widespread violations of Utah election law.” 

On Feb. 13, Utah Election Director Ryan Cowley presented the report to Cache County, clarifying that the Lt. Governor’s Office saw no evidence of fraud during the 2023 municipal primary and general elections, but did find “numerous and multiple violations of Utah election law.” 

And on Friday, Dustin Hansen, a 31-year-old man from Nibley, was charged with willful neglect of duty/corrupt conduct by poll worker, a third-degree felony, according to court documents. The charges were filed in Utah’s 1st District Court.

In court documents, prosecutors say Hansen presented a document related to a test on the county’s vote tabulating machines to the Lt. Governor’s Office. After inspecting the document, the office believed it had been altered. 

“After an investigation, it was found that Defendant had used PDF editing software on his work computer” to change the date the report was made, according to a probable cause statement from the Cache County Attorney’s Office.  

Cowley said the falsified document stems from ballot errors sent out to voters in parts of Logan, Paradise and Amalga. Those errors were corrected and new ballots were sent out — however, the county continued to use the incorrect database for tabulation. Cowley said that wasn’t discovered until the night before the election. 

“The ballot errors for Paradise and Amalga, those weren’t discovered until November 1, yet the logic and accuracy test reports that we were given by the county had those corrected races. So it was something that could not have possibly existed at the date and time that was created on that report,” Cowley said. 

Cowley also said the office found “poor chain of custody practices that could have introduced numerous opportunities for bad actors to impact the county’s election results.” 

In a letter, Cache County Clerk David Benson writes the Lt. Governor’s Office was made aware of the irregularity on Dec. 8. The incident did not impact “the results of the September primary nor November general elections,” Benson writes, while agreeing “it was a serious, if narrow, concern that needed to be vigorously pursued.” 

Days later, Benson recused himself from the clerk’s office, while placing two election workers on leave — Benson eventually returned, as did one of the other workers. But on Tuesday, an elections coordinator employed by Cache County resigned, Benson wrote. 

In a letter to the county, Henderson said her team “not only found an unprecedented lack of controls, widespread violations of Utah election law and administrative rule, but also a pointed disregard for policy and practices established by my office.” 

The report lists a number of recommendations — in her letter, Henderson said the county has until Feb. 20 to respond to each recommendation with an action plan and a timeframe for when it will be implemented. 

Benson via email on Monday pointed to correspondence with the Lt. Governor’s Office thanking them for the review and assuring his “commitment to addressing these issues in a speedy, thorough, and conscientious manner.” 

“I humbly report that 27 of the 31 recommendations in this review have been addressed, and that action plans to resolve the remaining four are scheduled to be complete by February 29, 2024,” the letter reads. “While I have personally reviewed every single recommendation and action plan, recognition must be given to current office staff who purposefully and thoughtfully have worked from early December 2023 to correct and improve our elections operations.”

This story has been updated to reflect comments from Cache County Clerk David Benson.