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

Another audit on Utah’s election system has been released — and this one, written by legislative auditors ahead of the 2025 legislative session set to begin next month, uncovered some issues. 

Those issues included, according to the report released Monday, 1,400 deceased voters that hadn’t been removed from voter rolls, room for improvement in ballot custody and security, and some problems with clerks properly conducting post-election audits.

“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 in their report, adding that it’s “especially concerning” considering they had previously recommended the Lt. Governor’s Office keep up on cleaning up Utah’s voter rolls in a previous audit completed in 2022. 

What auditors didn’t find, however, was widespread fraud, crediting clerks with “striving to run timely and accurate elections.” However, they did find some mistakes, so they offered a slate of recommendations to improve Utah’s election system on both local and state levels. 

“While we did not find significant fraud in Utah’s election system, the recommendations and findings in this report are needed to ensure continued election integrity,” legislative auditors wrote. 

House Speaker Mike Schultz, R-Hooper, appeared most frustrated with the finding that when auditors compared death records with Utah’s voter registration list from the past two years, they found more than 1,400 on the voter rolls that were “likely deceased,” and of those nearly 700 were marked as “active” voters. When matching those names with those who cast votes, auditors found two that cast ballots in the November 2023 elections.  

Schultz audibly sighed while reviewing the audit in a committee meeting Monday, asking legislative auditors, “If you’re dead, how do you vote?” and “if you had in-person voting, can a dead person vote?” 

In response, legislative auditors told him “not as easily,” though they added there is the possibility of impersonation fraud with in-person voting. 

“Which county was that in?” Schultz pressed. 

Salt Lake County, auditors said, adding that those ballots are currently being investigated for possible criminal charges. 

Schultz grilled Ryan Cowley, state elections director, on the audit, asking, “Where did the ball get dropped?” 

Cowley acknowledged that even though it’s a small percentage of Utah’s registered voters, the audit found “too many.” However, he said it was a result of a “data gap” because the Utah Department of Technology Services initially refused to provide data to the Lt. Governor’s Office from the Department of Vital Statistics that included updated death records. 

To help fix the issue, Cowley said state election officials are asking lawmakers to require that data to be sent to the Lt. Governor’s Office 120 days before the election or “on-demand, any time we ask for it, because without that file, the analysis that was done by the auditors could not have been done by our office.” 

“So given the tools that we had, we did the best that we could there,” Cowley said. 

The audit could position Utah’s Republican-controlled Legislature to consider changes to Utah’s elections, which currently operates under a widespread, automatic vote-by-mail system that sends by-mail ballots to all active registered voters. Schultz said its findings raise this question: “How can the citizens have the confidence that vote by mail is every bit as secure as in-person voting?” 

House Minority Leader Angela Romero, D-Salt Lake City, and Senate Minority Leader Luz Escamilla, D-Salt Lake City, worried that the audit may be used to advocate for eliminating voting by mail, which they said has helped dramatically increase voter turnout and access for people who may not otherwise have the means to vote in person. 

“I just don’t want this to be ammunition to get rid of vote by mail and other ways in which we vote here in Utah,” Romero said. 

Escamilla said the audit’s findings were “concerning,” but she argued “vote by mail is not the problem,” but rather the implementation of the safeguards already required by Utah law. “I want to make sure we’re directing to the real problem, which is execution,” she said.

For their performance audit — required under a law the Utah Legislature passed in 2023, which requires the Office of Legislative Auditor General to review the state’s election system every two years — legislative auditors mostly focused on the June primary election, when they observed 20 out of Utah’s 29 counties. However, in the report they also noted “we had auditors in every county during the 2024 November general election” on Nov. 5. They said they also “conducted audit work” for the report during the November 2023 election and the March 2024, Super Tuesday election.  

“During these extensive observations and tests, we found clerks striving to run timely and accurate elections,” legislative auditors wrote. “Although there are opportunities for improvement, which are detailed throughout this report, we have seen improvement in multiple counties and on multiple fronts.”

Election denialism has staying power even after Trump’s win

The audit comes after a divisive presidential election that handed President-elect Donald Trump a resounding victory in the red state of Utah and across the country. Throughout his campaigns this year and in 2020, Trump employed unsubstantiated rhetoric that casted doubt on election security in the U.S., but he toned down that rhetoric after his win last month.

However, concerns about election security surfaced in Utah this year, especially among Republicans who were divided by a particularly bitter governor’s race. Incumbent Gov. Spencer Cox won handily, but his GOP challenger Rep. Phil Lyman and Lyman’s supporters kept up a steady drumbeat of election rhetoric, especially over signature gathering — which Cox used under a Utah law that allows a dual path to the primary ballot alongside convention nominations. 

Lt. Gov. Henderson responds

Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson, in a written response to the legislative audit, highlighted the current climate of heightened scrutiny on elections in and outside of Utah, while saying she and her staff “take our oversight role seriously and will continue to ensure that Utah’s election laws are being followed.” 

“Given the tumultuous nature of elections, increased public scrutiny of those who administer them, and extensive changes to our election systems in recent years, I am continually inspired by the dedication and professionalism demonstrated by the vast majority of Utah’s election officials,” Henderson wrote. “These are not easy times to administer elections, and I applaud them for the work that they do.”

Henderson also wrote that over the past few years, Utah’s election system has seen a “period of rapid evolution.” 

“In addition to implementing numerous statutory changes, my office has initiated substantial operational improvements in our efforts to faithfully discharge our constitutional and statutory duties,” she wrote. “Safeguarding the voting rights of Utah citizens is an honor and responsibility that my staff and I treasure.” 

Among the past successes she cited in her letter, Henderson pointed to several examples of her office exerting its oversight power to enforce Utah’s election laws, including a “sweeping review” of former Cache County Clerk David Benson’s handling of the 2023 primary and general elections that exposed concerning practices, and a recent review of Utah County Clerk Aaron Davidson’s handling of the 2024 primary. 

Henderson also pointed to her request for an investigation of former Juab County Clerk Alaina Lofgran, which resulted in charges filed last year accusing Lofgran of destroying and tampering with ballots. Lofgran has pleaded not guilty in the case, which is ongoing, according to court documents. 

Signature audit finds ‘some errors’ — but Cox still ultimately qualified for primary

Additionally, Henderson wrote that as part of a concerted effort to enforce the statutory requirements of the signature gathering process, “my office uncovered potential fraud” and referred those concerns to the Utah Attorney General’s Office for investigation. 

“As a result, 13 individuals were charged for alleged fraud and/or forgeries related to candidate nomination petitions,” Henderson said. “Two of those individuals have already pleaded guilty.”

A spokesperson for the Utah Attorney General’s Office did not immediately respond to a request for more information about that investigation. 

“The successes outlined above represent only a fraction of what we have done over the past four years to tangibly improve and strengthen Utah elections,” Henderson wrote. “My office remains committed to the continued improvement and success of the state’s system of elections and the county clerks who administer them. We look forward to working with various stakeholders to discuss potential legislative changes and the steps needed to implement the appropriate recommendations made in this report.”

Audit findings 

Legislative auditors listed several findings in their report, including: 

• Several county clerks “neglected core ballot audit tests in their post-election audits.” In their observations, legislative auditors said they noticed clerks “varied widely in the faithful executive of post-election audit procedures. In several cases, we observed clerks did not audit ballot details that are critical to the correct function and reliability of Utah’s post-election audit process.” 
• Election equipment can limit clerks’ ability to identify audited ballots.
• The Lt. Governor’s Office “has not ensured deceased voters are removed from voter rolls.” Auditors wrote during their analysis of the state’s voter registration, they identified more than “1,400 deceased voters that should have been removed from the voter registration system. At the time of our review, nearly 700 of those voters (were) active and would have received a ballot.” Auditors added that they checked for voting activity among those deceased voters and found “that two of the matched voters cast ballots in the November 2023 election.” 
• Auditors also said the Lt. Governor’s Office “has not utilized” a new full-time position that should be dedicated to monitoring voter lists and working with counties to fix them. “We believe that not making full use of that data analyst position contributed to the problems discussed in this chapter,” auditors wrote.
• Auditors also found more than 300 “potential duplicate records” within voter records, “some of which appeared to vote twice in past elections.” Auditors noted they found similar concerns in a 2022 audit, and “recommended that additional statewide monitoring could help remedy errors.”
• Some counties don’t organize ballots into batches immediately after they’re received, “which increases the chance of misprocessing ballots,” auditors wrote. They recommended clerks follow the law and batch ballots immediately after collecting them. 
• Several counties have “insufficient camera monitoring” of ballot processing, including during ballot intake, signature verification, and ballot scanning. “These counties should correct these deficiencies as quickly as possible to ensure that their election processes are monitored as required in law,” auditors wrote.
• Some counties did not properly reconcile ballot custody records during the 2024 June primary. 
• The Lt. Governor’s Office should clarify its administrative rules for “clearer signature verification training standards,” auditors wrote. They also recommended the Utah Legislature to consider changing the law to “renew the requirement for the study of options to improve election-related signature quality, including a target date for completion and a requirement” that the Lt. Governor’s Office “report back on the process.”

In response to the audit and each of its recommendations, Cowley wrote a detailed response illustrating existing efforts to address issues, as well as plans to respond to recommendations. 

Among those responses, Cowley agreed with a recommendation that the Lt. Governor’s Office compare records of deceased individuals from the Office of Vital Records and Statistics with the state’s official voter rolls at least 90 days before each primary and general election. He noted that was a finding in a previous audit in 2022, and “our office has made a concerted effort to comply with the requirements outlined in statute.”

“Using the tools that were available to us, we feel that we have complied with this recommendation,” Cowley said. “Neither the Office of the Lieutenant Governor nor the county clerks want deceased individuals to be on the state’s voter rolls or for another individual to attempt to vote in (sic) their behalf. This has highlighted shortcomings in the processes related to deceased voters which we will work to improve.”

Cowley said once state election officials became aware of the 1,400 deceased voters on the rolls in late September, “we took immediate action to ensure they were reviewed” by county clerks before Nov. 5. He said state officials sent the entire list of potential matchers to each county clerk, and the Lt. Governor’s Office reviewed more than 450 of the active records and “provided detailed information to each clerk including notes on secondary sources such as obituaries.”

On auditors’ recommendation that the Lt. Governor’s Office “better use” its data analyst position to regularly and proactively clean up Utah’s voter rolls, Cowley balked at that claim. 

“While this legislative audit has uncovered some gaps that will help us improve, we respectfully disagree with the claim that we have not properly utilized staff to regularly and proactively monitor and ensure voter list maintenance,” Cowley wrote. “Prior to and in response to the legislative audit conducted in 2022, our office has gone to great lengths to improve the accuracy of the state’s voter rolls.”

He said existing efforts already include quarterly registration audits for every county, registration training for all clerks, monthly voter list maintenance certifications, regularly checking duplicate and deceased lists for counties, and more. He also said internal quarterly audits show a declining number of findings, which he said is “a strong indicator that the voter list is getting better with each passing audit and training provided by our office.”

“Lastly, this legislative audit found that there are 300 potential registration duplicates in the state’s (voter registration system,)” Cowley wrote. “While having ZERO duplicate registrations is our goal, context is helpful.” He noted there are more than 2 million registered voters in Utah, “making the voter rolls 99.9855% free from duplicates.” 

Still, Cowley said, the Lt. Governor’s Office will continue to review the state’s voter registration system to “ensure that all duplicates are removed.” 

For more details about what legislative auditors found and what they’re recommending, read the entire report here: