'Concerning:' Utah County attorney confirms investigation into ballot tracking

Utah County Attorney Jeff Gray confirmed Wednesday that his office is investigating Utah County Clerk Aaron Davidson’s tracking of how elected officials cast their votes, first reported by the Deseret News.

“We’re looking into it. I’ve asked one of my investigators to look into the matter,” Gray said, after being informed by state Sen. Mike McKell, R-Spanish Fork, that Davidson had told the Deseret News he knew that McKell had mailed in his primary ballot without a stamp because he tracked the voting method used by a “list of politicians.”

“It raises concerns to me, obviously,” Gray said. “It may be a matter of, do we need a legislative fix? The election laws are somewhat complicated and this isn’t something that we typically investigate. So we’re still pouring through those. It’s really kind of a legislative policy as to what they want disclosed and not disclosed. And at the end of the day, what do the people want.”

The county attorney said the investigation is “going to take a little time” and will also look into other allegations, including that some Utah County voters who mailed back their ballots without stamps were contacted by the clerk’s office. Gray said “it’s hard to say” whether it’s a criminal investigation at this point.

“It’s concerning. But again, I need to determine what the facts are, and whether or not there is a violation of the law. That’s my focus. It’s not a political (focus) and it doesn’t matter whether I’m concerned or not,” he said. “I just need to do my due diligence and make sure that the law has been complied with.”

‘Unsettling:’ Lawmaker says Utah County clerk knew she voted by mail

Also Wednesday, state Rep. Stephanie Gricius, R-Eagle Mountain, told the Deseret News that Davidson made a point of bringing up recently that she’d voted by mail in the June primary, an “unsettling” and “unusual” comment that has her asking whether new legislation is needed to protect voter privacy.

“Basically, he said something along the lines of, ‘Hey, if I remember right, you mailed your ballot in for the primary. I’m going to strongly encourage you to use a drop box for the general election.’ That was pretty much the end of conversation but it was at that point I figured out, ‘OK, he’s looked up how I sent in my ballot,’” Gricius said.

“I didn’t have time to get into that with him,” she said, because their brief exchange occurred at a state senate debate earlier this month where she was serving as a volunteer. Still, Gricius said, “it was a little unsettling. My first instinct was to question what other information about my ballot that he had.”

She also said she “found it unusual that it would come up. We weren’t talking about that at all when it was brought up,” she said. “Really, it was just that unsettling component of, well, do you know who I voted for? How did you find that information? What went into the process of you looking that up?”

Gricius said she reached out to a former employee in the clerk’s office “to see if that was information that was tracked normally or if that was something new and they explained the clerk’s office does keep track of how ballots are submitted as part of the chain of custody, but that he would have had to look me up individually to see my personal information.”

She also contacted an elections law attorney in the Office of Legislature Research and General Counsel about the issue but they have yet to connect.

“I wanted to know what’s the problem — is there a problem, first of all, and then, what is it. And if there is no legal problem, then why not and what do we need to do to make sure people’s ballots are truly protected,” the Eagle Mountain lawmaker said. “I think that using someone’s private ballot, that again is constitutionally protected, to push a political position is completely inappropriate.”

It’s too soon to say whether that will lead to her proposing changes in the law, she said.

What the Utah County clerk says about the controversy

Davidson did not respond to calls or texts Wednesday asking for comment about the investigation.

During the primary, he and McKell tussled on social media about Utah County not paying for return postage on ballots, a decision made to discourage voters from sending them back via the U.S. Postal Service. Davidson said voting by mail is not as safe or as secure as using a drop box provided by the county.

Before McKell said he’d brought his concerns to the county attorney, Davidson said McKell was the only person whose voting method he publicized even though tracking the method politicians use to vote is “really easy. You just put their name in and it pops up. So I looked at it but I didn’t do anything with it” when it came to others.

“It was just that one time I did it. It was just for the primary because Michael McKell was out there saying all this trash about, ‘Go ahead and cast your ballot using the mail and don’t pay for postage, you don’t have to. He was politicizing that whole thing,” Davidson said.

He said he hasn’t tracked any general election ballots, but that could change “if Mike McKell wants to make a political issue out of it.” Davidson also said the public could access the same information.

The state Elections Office has not commented on the controversy but the state’s director of election, Ryan Cowley, said in a statement the state’s publicly available voter records wouldn’t specify whether or not a ballot was returned through the U.S. Postal Service.

“Counties may use other methods to track where ballots come from, but the state voter registration system only tracks the broad categories which doesn’t differentiate between post office or drop box,” Cowley said.