Utah

Deep red Utah wants to keep voting by mail • Stateline

Published

2 years ago

March 12, 2024

Deep red Utah wants to keep voting by mail • Stateline

When it comes to voting by mail, Utah is not your typical deep red state.

In 2020, when many states scrambled to implement mail-in voting so voters had a safe way to cast a ballot during the pandemic, Utah already had a system.

Republican conspiracy theories questioning the integrity of voting by mail in the tumultuous aftermath of the 2020 election never rang true for most Utahns. They’d been testing the system for years and found it trustworthy and convenient.

In Utah, that appreciation has stuck in the four years since, despite several legislative attempts by Republicans to curb residents’ access to mail-in ballots.

Again this year, members of the Republican supermajority in Salt Lake City joined Democrats in rejecting attempts to curb the state’s universal vote-by-mail system. The failed bills would have added a new deadline for turning in ballots and required voters to request mail-in ballots rather than having them sent automatically.

There’s a different story playing out nationally. Former President Donald Trump, the presumptive 2024 Republican nominee, has — without evidence — lambasted the voting process as being rife with fraud and has blamed it for rigging elections for his opponents. Republican lawmakers around the country have listened to him.

Republican-led states have restricted access to voting by mail through tighter deadlines, limiting who can request a mail-in ballot and eliminating drop boxes. Utah, though, continues to back its approach to ballot access, as bipartisan opponents turned aside efforts to restrict mail-in voting.

As ranked choice voting gains momentum, parties in power push back

The mistrust of an unfamiliar voting method that dominated other red states’ politics never landed fully in Utah, said TJ Ellerbeck, executive director of the Rural Utah Project, a group that advocates for Native American and rural voters.

“Most average voters in Utah don’t think that there’s anything wrong that needs to be fixed,” Ellerbeck said. “The ideas that are put forth by a handful of legislators in states across the country just really don’t reflect what people actually think about our voting system.”

Some of the Republican lawmakers behind proposed mail-voting restrictions in Utah concede that point, even as they try to navigate the prevailing mood in their party. In order to restore confidence in elections, the argument goes, voting rules must be tightened.

Republican state Rep. Norm Thurston, for example, proposed a measure that would have required that mailed ballots get to county clerks on Election Day, instead of merely being postmarked by Election Day. That would have cut into potential voters’ time to make their decisions and added uncertainty in rural areas with slower mail service.

“In Utah, I don’t know that we have a particular problem,” Thurston said in an interview.

“But one of my concerns is making sure that our voters have confidence that our voting process is not flawed or vulnerable,” he said. “We want people to know our process is solid and that people can have trust in how things are going to turn out.”

In Utah, though, voter confidence is high.

We have a very vibrant voting system in Utah. We have been able to prove that we are a model for the nation on mailed ballots.

– Katharine Biele, president of the League of Women Voters of Utah

According to a January poll commissioned by the Sutherland Institute, a Utah-based conservative think tank, 76% of likely 2024 voters in the state think the vote-by-mail process produces fair outcomes.

“There’s a political momentum on the Republican side to put more restrictions on it,” said Derek Monson, chief growth officer at the Sutherland Institute. “But it’s up against this experiential reality that people like it, they’re familiar with it, they’re confident in it.”

In the large, rural state, whose southeastern end includes a slice of the Navajo Nation, voting by mail allows remote voters who may be hours from a polling place to conveniently cast their ballots. Even before the pandemic, Utah was one of four states (Colorado, Hawaii and Oregon were the others) where nearly all voters used mail-in ballots, keeping only a handful of vote centers open for people to drop them off in person. Today, Utah is the sole Republican state among the eight states (plus the District of Columbia) that send mail-in ballots to every voter.

“We have a very vibrant voting system in Utah,” said Katharine Biele, president of the League of Women Voters of Utah. “We have been able to prove that we are a model for the nation on mailed ballots.”

So far, Utah has resisted attempts at making major changes to its vote-by-mail system. But voting rights advocates are not breathing easy.

“Utah is not immune,” said Ellerbeck. “It’s a fight we’re winning, but we haven’t won.”

Why Republican-led states keep leaving a group that verifies voter rolls

There are some members of the legislature who, like Thurston, want to add limits in the name of improving accuracy and integrity of elections. Utah wouldn’t be alone among states that have tighter rules around voting by mail, even in states led by Democrats.

He got the idea for his legislation, he said, during a National Conference of State Legislatures summit. There, he heard that blue Colorado, which also has a vote-by-mail system, requires that ballots be received by county clerks by 7 p.m. on Election Day.

“We were trying to figure out if there is a way that we can accelerate the finalization of the election with the goal of giving more people confidence that our election processes is safe,” said Thurston, who added that he returns his ballot early through a drop box, not trusting the mail.

Hundreds of supporters of voting by mail showed up at the committee hearing for his bill in January; they argued that a change in long-standing procedure could confuse and potentially disenfranchise voters who have slow mail in rural areas.

After the bill was held in committee by a unanimous vote, including by Thurston, committee leaders didn’t take up another bill that would have limited voting by mail.

Thurston said he understood the concerns local election officials and voters voiced about changing deadlines, acknowledging that it might require a “massive” voter awareness campaign, which could be expensive and difficult.

Similar objections were raised in 2022, when one Republican lawmaker attempted to scrap the state’s vote-by-mail system and return to in-person voting. That bill also failed to advance out of committee, with several Republicans joining Democrats to defeat it.

Voting by mail remains at risk in many other states.

Last month, the Republican-led Arizona House passed a bill that would limit mail-in voting to people with disabilities, military members and older people, with limited exceptions for people temporarily out of the state. The bill is awaiting a committee hearing in the state Senate.

Meanwhile, at least two dozen other states are exploring further limits this year, though few if any have been signed into law. Last year, 14 states enacted 17 restrictive voting laws that included banning ballot drop boxes, requiring more information to receive mail-in ballots and shortening deadlines for turning in absentee ballots, according to the Brennan Center for Justice, a New York-based voting rights advocacy organization.

Feds deliver stark warnings to state election officials ahead of November

Even in Utah, new hurdles to voting have emerged in recent years.

In 2022, Republican Gov. Spencer Cox signed into law a measure that requires 24-hour video surveillance of ballot drop boxes. Voting rights advocates opposed the bill, arguing it would limit some locations for drop boxes in heavily rural areas, especially on the Navajo Nation, where there is sporadic electricity, said Ellerbeck, of the Rural Utah Project.

And in Utah County, the second most populous in the state, County Clerk Aaron Davidson, a Republican, decided the county would no longer pay postage for mail-in ballots.

The move aims to encourage voters to use ballot drop boxes, instead of relying on the mail. It will also save the county $110,000 a year, he said. Nineteen Utah counties don’t provide postage for mail-in ballots, Davidson pointed out, while 10 others do, including Salt Lake County, home to more than a third of Utahns.

Davidson made the announcement while speaking in favor of Thurston’s legislation during the committee hearing in January. He told Stateline, though, that he had softened his position on mail-in ballot deadlines after hearing testimony from clerks in smaller, more rural counties who worried delays in the mail could make it harder to make an Election Day deadline.

“Society has just got more complex, and people need that ability to vote by mail,” Davidson said. “But I do believe it needs some more restrictions.”

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Related Topics:2024 Election election day Featured in person voting mail ballots mail-in voting vote-by-mail

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Utah

Utah nonprofit creates events, experiences for disadvantaged children

Published

4 hours ago

March 5, 2026

Press Room

Utah nonprofit creates events, experiences for disadvantaged children

SALT LAKE CITY (KUTV) — A simple moment watching a child laugh changed everything for Ivan Gonzalez.

Eight years ago, Gonzalez was working at the Ronald McDonald House when he had an idea to throw a birthday carnival for the kids staying there.

“Let’s do a carnival, birthday carnival for the kids,” he said.

MORE | Pay It Forward

What happened during that event stuck with him.

“There I was watching this kid play whack-a-mole, just having a blast, laughing,” Gonzalez said. “And then I see his mom kind of with happy tears because he’s enjoying himself.”

That moment led to something bigger.

Gonzalez realized the experience shouldn’t stop with just one event or just one group of kids.

“I said, wait, we can do this not just for kids in the hospital,” he said with excitement.

So he started a nonprofit called Best Seat in the House, which creates events and experiences for children who often face difficult circumstances.

“We provide events and experiences for disadvantaged kids,” Gonzalez said.

The organization serves children battling cancer and other medical conditions, refugee children, kids living in poverty, those in foster care and children with special needs.

“These kids grow up too fast,” Gonzalez said.

For Gonzalez, the mission is deeply personal.

“I grew up very poor,” he said.

He remembers the people who stepped in for his family when they needed it most.

“The local church, we weren’t even a part of it,” he described. “My parents couldn’t afford Christmas gifts and I still remember the gifts they gave me. They didn’t even know me.”

Today, he hopes to create that same feeling for other children through his nonprofit.

“Kids live in poverty and they don’t know where the next meal is coming from, let alone going to a play or to a game,” Gonzalez said.

But for Gonzalez, the reward isn’t the events themselves, it’s the joy they create.

“You can give me a billion dollars, all the money in the world,” he says as tears roll down his face. “I won’t trade these opportunitieskids just enjoying life.”

Because of his work giving back, KUTV and Mountain America Credit Union surprised Gonzalez with a Pay it Forward gift to help him continue creating those moments for kids across Utah.

For more information on supporting Best Seat in the House, click here.

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Utah

‘Don’t release him ever. Please.’ Family of slain Utah teen calls for justice at parole hearing

Published

16 hours ago

March 4, 2026

Press Room

‘Don’t release him ever. Please.’ Family of slain Utah teen calls for justice at parole hearing

SALT LAKE CITY — Francisco Daniel Aguilar says he’s sorry for shooting and killing his girlfriend, 16-year-old Jacqueline “Jacky” Nunez-Millan, a Piute High School sophomore, in 2023.

But just as he did when he was sentenced, he didn’t have much of an explanation on Tuesday as to why he shot her not once, but twice.

“It just kinda happened. I was mad. And I stepped out (of my truck) and started shooting,” he said. “When I saw her fall, I just kind of panicked, I just went and shot her again.”

But Jacky’s friends and family members say even before she was killed, Aguilar already had a history of violence, and they now want justice to be served.

“You don’t accidentally take a gun, you don’t accidentally grab a knife … you don’t accidentally shoot someone, those are all choices,” a tearful Rosa Nunez, Jacky’s sister, said at Tuesday’s hearing. “Keep him where he needs to be.

“Don’t release him ever. Please.”

On Jan. 7, 2023, Aguilar, who was 17 at the time, got into a fight with his girlfriend, Jacky, shot her twice and left her body near a dirt road outside of Circleville, Piute County. He was convicted as an adult of aggravated murder and sentenced to a term of 25 years to up to life in prison.

Because of Aguilar’s age at the time of the offense, board member Greg Johnson explained Tuesday that the Utah Board of Pardons and Parole is required to hold a hearing much earlier than the 25-year mark, mainly to check on Aguilar and “see how things are going.” Aguilar, now 20, is currently being held in a juvenile secure care facility and will be transferred to the Utah State Prison when he turns 25 or earlier if he has discipline violations and is kicked out of the youth facility.

According to Aguilar’s sentencing guidelines, he will likely remain in custody until at least the year 2051.

During Tuesday’s hearing, Aguilar told the board that he was feeling “stressed out” during his senior year of high school. He said he and Jacky would often have little arguments. But their bigger fight happened when he failed to get her a “promise ring” around Christmastime, he said.

On the night of the killing, the two were arguing about the promise ring and other items, Aguilar recalled. At one point, he grabbed a knife and then a gun because, he said, he wanted to “irritate” and “scare” Jacky. According to evidence presented in the preliminary hearing, Aguilar and his girlfriend had been “trying to make each other angry” when Aguilar took ammunition and a 9mm gun from his father’s room and then drove to the Black Hill area in his truck with Jacky.

Jacky’s friend, McKall Taylor, went looking for her that night and found her. But after Aguilar shot Jacky in the leg, he began shooting at Taylor, who had no choice but to run to her car to get away. Her car was hit multiple times by bullets. Aguilar then shot Jacky a second time as she lay on the ground and Taylor drove away.

On Tuesday, Taylor’s mother, Lori Taylor, read a statement to the board on her daughter’s behalf.

“My innocence and freedom was taken from me,” she said.

McKall Taylor says the “horrifying events of that night will forever play in my head,” and the sounds of Jacky screaming and the gunshots as well as the sight of Jacky falling to the ground, will never go away.

“Francisco is a murderer who has zero remorse,” her letter states.

Likewise, Rosa Nunez told the board that for her and her family, “nothing in our world has felt safe since” that night as they all “continue to relive this horrific moment.”

After shooting Jacky and driving off, Aguilar says he called his father and “told him I was sorry for not being better, for not making good choices, I told him that I loved him. I was just planning on probably shooting myself, too.”

His father told him that although what he did wasn’t right, “he’d rather see me behind bars than in a casket,” and then told his son to “be a man about it. … This is where you have to change.”

Aguilar was arrested after his tires were spiked by police.

“An apology won’t fix what I did. I’ll never be able to fix what I did. But I want to say I’m sorry,” he said Tuesday. “I don’t even know how to fix what I did. I’m hoping I’m on the right track now.”

Johnson noted that Aguilar has done well during his short time being incarcerated. But that doesn’t change the fact “the crime was horrific,” he said.

The full five-member board will now take a vote. The board could decide to schedule another parole hearing for sometime in the future or could order that Aguilar serve his entire life sentence. But even if that were to happen, Johnson says Aguilar could petition every so often for a redetermination hearing.

The board’s decision is expected in several weeks.

The Key Takeaways for this article were generated with the assistance of large language models and reviewed by our editorial team. The article, itself, is solely human-written.

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Utah

Lawsuit claims Utah teen killed by counterfeit airbag

Published

1 day ago

March 4, 2026

Press Room

Lawsuit claims Utah teen killed by counterfeit airbag

SALT LAKE CITY (KUTV) — A wrongful death lawsuit filed in Utah alleges a counterfeit airbag turned a routine crash into a fatal explosion that killed a teenage driver within minutes.

Alexia De La Rosa graduated from Hunter High School in May of 2025. On July 30, 2025, she was involved in a crash.

The lawsuit alleges that when the vehicle’s driver-side airbag deployed, it detonated and sent metal and plastic shrapnel into the cabin.

MORE | Crashes

A large, jagged piece of metal struck Alexia in the chest, and she died minutes later, according to the complaint.

The lawsuit, filed by Morgan & Morgan in Utah’s Third Judicial District Court, was brought on behalf of Tessie De La Rosa, as personal representative of the estate of her 17-year-old daughter.

The defendants are AutoSavvy Holdings Inc., AutoSavvy Dealerships LLC, and AutoSavvy Management Company LLC.

Morgan & Morgan alleges that the Hyundai Sonata had previously been declared a total loss after a 2023 crash and issued a salvage title. The suit claims AutoSavvy later purchased the vehicle and had it repaired — during which counterfeit, non-compliant, and defective airbag components were allegedly installed — before reselling it to the De La Rosa family.

The complaint further alleges that AutoSavvy knew or should have known the vehicle contained counterfeit and nonfunctional airbag components when it was sold.

“This is the third wrongful death lawsuit we have filed involving alleged counterfeit airbags that we believe turned survivable crashes into fatal incidents,” Morgan & Morgan founder John Morgan said in a statement. “No life should be cut short because a corporation puts profits above safety.”

Attorney Andrew Parker Felix, who is leading the case, said the firm is committed to uncovering how allegedly illegal airbag inflators enter the stream of commerce and are installed in vehicles sold to consumers.

“To make this perfectly clear, these are not supposed to be in the United States at all,” Felix said. “They are not approved for use in any vehicle that’s being driven in the United States.”

“They don’t have approval from any governmental agency to be installed in vehicles that are driven within the United States and regulated here,” he added.

Morgan & Morgan says it is investigating at least three additional deaths involving other defendants and alleged counterfeit airbags.

KUTV 2News reached out to AutoSavvy multiple times by email and phone. We were told a member of the company’s legal team would be in touch, but as of publication we have not received a response.

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