Utah lawmakers wanted answers about whether the state's mail-ballot system was vulnerable to fraud. What they got back, in a study released this week, was a blunt finding: neither mail voting nor in-person voting is inherently more secure than the other, and any plan to check identification at ballot drop boxes would come with a hefty bill attached.
Researchers at Utah Valley University reached that conclusion after analyzing election systems in Utah and five other states, according to The Salt Lake Tribune. The study, which cost taxpayers $100,000, was commissioned by lawmakers earlier this year after Utah GOP legislators pushed for a security review of the state's mail ballots. The researchers determined that in-person and mail voting remain subject to many of the same risks, and that returning Utah to an in-person voting model would likely not change the state's election security.
The study grew out of a legislative standoff. Rep. Jefferson Burton had proposed HB479 earlier this year, a bill that would have required poll workers to check voters' IDs starting in 2027, limited the hours ballot drop boxes could be open, and required two poll workers to monitor each drop box. The Utah Senate blocked that proposal, and the impasse led to a final-hour deal mandating the study instead, the same report notes.
Three Ways to Check IDs at Drop Boxes, All With Tradeoffs
Because lawmakers specifically tasked researchers with identifying practices for checking identification before a ballot goes into a drop box, the study explored three options, per the Tribune's reporting. Each comes with its own costs and complications, and the researchers found that any method for doing so would add costs and implementation challenges.
The first option would have counties hire staff to verify that a voter's ID matches the name on the ballot envelope at the moment of drop-off. That would increase the average time it takes to drop off a ballot from a vehicle from one minute or less to about four minutes, and researchers estimated a 20-minute wait if five cars arrived at a staffed box simultaneously. The price tag: roughly $1 million upfront for equipment, plus approximately $8.1 million in labor costs per election year. Researchers characterized even those staffing estimates as far from comprehensive, since they exclude costs like traffic control, law enforcement monitoring, canopies, chairs, and other supplies.
The second option would swap in Sentinel smart drop boxes, which photograph voters without requiring an in-person staffer. Those images could then be compared against Department of Motor Vehicles records by either remote employees or artificial intelligence. Replacing Utah's 323 existing drop boxes with the smart version would cost at least $4.4 million, with an additional base of $4.3 million for software subscriptions, and costs would climb further with optional power and design add-ons. Notably, those estimates do not account for the labor required to actually check the captured images.
A Digital ID Option Still Full of Questions
The third option leans on Utah's developing state-endorsed digital identity program, which lawmakers established earlier this year to build cryptographically verified digital credentials that could eventually be used for election identification. Under one proposed version, voters would authenticate with a digital wallet and scan unique QR codes on both the ballot envelope and the drop box itself.
Researchers said they could not even estimate the cost of this approach, noting it raises several legal and logistical questions, and that unmanned verification would require further technical development before it could be rolled out statewide.
What the Data Says About Fraud So Far
The push for tighter verification comes despite little evidence of mail-ballot fraud in Utah. A legislative audit released in December 2024 found just two improper votes among more than 2 million statewide votes cast in 2023 and 2024, as Bolts reported. A separate audit covered by Utah News Dispatch stated plainly that investigators did not find significant fraud in Utah's election system, though it did flag more than 1,400 likely deceased people still on the voter rolls, nearly 700 of them marked active, and found that two had cast ballots in the November 2023 election.
An ongoing review of Utah's voter rolls also hasn't found any cases of noncitizens voting in a Utah election, according to a separate Utah News Dispatch report. The most recent review did result in the removal of one noncitizen registered voter, in addition to four found the previous year. Utah first piloted all-by-mail elections in 2012 and has relied on mail voting as its primary method for more than a decade.
National research backs up the pattern. According to the Brookings Institution, cases of mail-voting fraud are exceedingly rare nationally, accounting for only 0.000043% of total mail ballots cast — about four cases out of every 10 million mail votes — with universal vote-by-mail systems showing the smallest share of that already tiny fraud rate compared to absentee-voting systems.
Comparing Utah to Other States
The study didn't look at Utah in isolation. Researchers examined Arkansas and Tennessee, which rely primarily on in-person polling and require voters to provide an excuse to vote by mail, as well as Arizona, which permits mail ballot requests without an excuse. They also looked at Colorado and Washington, which, like Utah, conduct elections mostly by mail, per the Tribune's account of the findings.
Utah's existing system already verifies voter identity twice. County election officials compare the signature on a ballot envelope against a voter's previous voting records, and if there is a mismatch, the voter is notified and given a chance to submit a cure affidavit, according to Utah's official voter information site. Separately, every by-mail ballot envelope is assigned a unique control number, or barcode, tied to a specific voter, which is scanned to confirm that person hasn't already voted, according to the state's ballot-processing safeguards page.
What Happens Next
Despite the study's findings, lawmakers did not discuss any changes to a separate, already-scheduled shift in how Utahns receive ballots after researchers presented their findings to the Government Operations Interim Committee. Starting in 2029, Utah voters will have to opt in to receive a ballot through the mail, a change set in motion by a 2025 law Burton introduced that will eventually end the state's practice of automatically sending a ballot to every active, registered voter's mailbox.
Research has also found broader effects tied to mail voting access. A 2009 study found no-excuse absentee voting increased participation by about three percentage points over excuse-based absentee systems, Brookings reports. A 2020 study also examined universal vote-by-mail adoption. A 2020 Stanford University study cited by Brookings found that universal vote-by-mail did not appear to affect either party's share of turnout or boost either party's vote share. Separately, Brigham Young University researchers found that Utah's shift to universal vote-by-mail produced a dramatic increase in turnout, particularly in municipal and off-cycle elections, according to Bolts.
For now, the study stands as something of a compromise — a way to preserve Utah's vote-by-mail system against an earlier House GOP push to gut it, while giving lawmakers data to weigh before deciding whether any of the three drop-box ID options are worth the cost.
