Tucked in the middle of a list of 100 bills Gov. Spencer Cox signed Thursday was “Amendments to Election Law,” or HB300 — the law that is set to end Utah’s popular universal vote-by-mail election system.

The governor did not include a comment on his decision to sign the bill in the news release, as he has for some other bills.

An initial version of the bill would have effectively eliminated Utahns’ option to send their ballot through the mail altogether, but the version Cox ultimately signed allows voters to opt in to participating in elections through the mail. Utahns must opt in before 2029, when counties will stop sending ballots to every voter’s mailbox.

The compromise came after widespread opposition among the elected officials who oversee the state’s elections, as well as skepticism from the Senate over cutting off access to voting by mail.

[READ: How the group that wrote Project 2025 got Utah to end universal vote by mail]

Voters may ask to receive ballots in the mail when they apply for or renew their ID or driver license, or when they vote in person. Utahns will also be able to make that selection online. Once the voter requests to participate in elections by mail, a ballot should show up in their mailbox for eight years unless they fail to vote in a regular election.

The law also starts Utah on the path of transitioning toward relying on the last four digits of a state ID number — or, if they don’t have one, the last four digits of their Social Security number — rather than the voter’s signature to verify a mail-in ballot.

It also moves up the deadline for returning a ballot, requiring voters to ensure that county clerks receive mailed ballots before 8 p.m. Election Day — likely resulting in fewer ballots being counted. Previously, all ballots postmarked by the day before Election Day were counted.

The bill has been criticized by Democrats and voting rights advocates as a policy change that will make it more difficult for marginalized communities — especially Native Americans and those with disabilities — to vote.

In a news conference on the final night of this year’s legislative session, Cox called the bill “brilliant.”

“Lots of people wrongly believe that we have mass fraud in our elections, and it’s just not true, but we need to restore trust to them as well,” Cox, a Republican, said.

A 2024 poll by the Utah-based conservative think tank Sutherland Institute found that most Utahns do trust the state’s elections, with 87% saying they are “very confident” or “somewhat confident” in ballot count accuracy.

Utah was one of eight states, the majority of which are in the expansive American West, that mails ballots to all active, registered voters. While Utah is the only solid red state of the bunch, it is also joined by Nevada, a swing state Trump won in November that is currently led by a Republican governor.

After last year’s primary elections, The Tribune found that among the 26 counties that provided voting method data, 96.7% of Utahns who voted used the ballot sent to their mailbox.

Utah travelers and movie fans have a new guide to find the places where Jeremiah Johnson camped, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid hid from the law, and Thelma and Louise made their fateful leap.

One of the markers, above and below, on the Utah Film Trail, showing a location at Dead Horse Point State Park that was used in the 1991 movie “Thelma & Louise.” The trail program was launched by the Utah Film Commission and the Utah Office of Tourism. Photos courtesy of the Utah Film Commission

The Utah Film Commission and the Utah Office of Tourism announced on March 19 they have launched the Utah Film Trail, a series of physical markers placed around the state — from Brigham City to Monument Valley — to point out the Utah places where well-known movies have been made.

The trail “will take you off the beaten path to discover the settings for made-in-Utah films and television shows you’ve fallen in love with,” Virginia Pearce, the Utah Film Commission’s director, said in a news release.

The metal markers, designed by the Salt Lake City architecture firm Studio LP and fabricated by Salt Lake City-based Element Shop Works, feature the names of the movies shot in those locations and details about them. They include QR codes that can be scanned to locate more information online. And the markers are designed so a visitor can look through them and imagine how the location looks on a movie screen.

The full list of marker locations is available on the tourism office’s website, at visitutah.com.

Some of the 21 locations on the trail are:

• Two locations from “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” (1969): Zion Canyon Village in Springdale, which served as the hideout location for Paul Newman and Robert Redford, and Snow Canyon State Park nearby, where some of the chase scenes were shot.

• Sundance Mountain Resort, where Redford’s mountain man character in “Jeremiah Johnson” (1972) built his cabin.

• Fossil Point at Dead Horse Point State Park, in Grand and San Juan counties, which doubled as the Grand Canyon for the famous climax of “Thelma & Louise” (1991). The park was also used in John Ford’s “Fort Apache” (1948) and for Tom Cruise’s rock-climbing stunt in “Mission: Impossible 2″ (2000).

• Lorin Farr Pool in Ogden, where the fake-drowning scene in “The Sandlot” (1993) was shot.

• Goblin Valley State Park in Emery County, whose hoodoos doubled for the rock-like aliens in the science-fiction comedy “Galaxy Quest” (1999).

One of the markers on the Utah Film Trail, showing a location at Goblin Valley State Park that was used in the 1999 movie “Galaxy Quest.” The trail program was launched by the Utah Film Commission and the Utah Office of Tourism. Visitors can look through the markers to see how the location might look on a screen.

• Wendover Airfield, by the Nevada border, where “Con Air” (1997), “Independence Day” (1996) and “Hulk” (2003) were shot, among others.

• Great Salt Lake State Park, particularly around the old Saltair resort, where parts of the cult classic horror movie “Carnival of Souls” (1962) were filmed.

• Bryce Canyon National Park, the backdrop for one of the first movies ever shot in Utah: The silent Tom Mix cowboy movie “The Deadwood Coach” (1924).

The film commission last year marked the centennial of filmmaking in Utah with an exhibit in the Utah Capitol. A smaller version of that exhibit is scheduled to open this spring at the Salt Lake City International Airport, in the Sen. Jake Garn Greeting Room, the commission announced.

Gov. Spencer Cox vetoed a bill Tuesday that would have given him the power to appoint the chief justice of the Utah Supreme Court.

“I admit it is very tempting to sign this bill and assure that the Chief Justice would need to stay in my good graces to retain his or her position,” Cox wrote in a four-page letter explaining his veto.

“Knowing the head magistrate of our state’s highest court would have to think twice before ruling against me or checking my power is difficult to reject,”

“But just because I can, doesn’t mean I should. And while I appreciate your faith and trust in extending me this new authority, I must respectfully decline,” he wrote.

The bill, SB296, was one of several clamping down on the courts after a string of rulings blocking several laws passed by the Legislature, including bills that outlawed almost all abortions, banned transgender girls from playing high school sports, limited the Legislature’s power to undo ballot initiatives and voided a constitutional amendment to undo the initiative ruling.

Sen. Chris Wilson, R-Logan, who sponsored the bill, said his aim was to mimic the process in place for the U.S. Supreme Court in which the president appoints the chief justice, who is then confirmed by the Senate.

“If that were all the bill did, it is something I could support,” Cox wrote. But the bill also required the chief justice to be reappointed and reconfirmed by the Senate every four years, as opposed to the U.S. Supreme Court, where the chief justice is a lifetime appointment.

On the last night of the session, Cox suggested that he was not a supporter of the bill.

“I have no interest in appointing the chief justice,” he said in an interview. “I didn’t ask for it. It was not something I wanted.”

He also said he would have vetoed two other bills targeting the judiciary — one that would have created a legislative panel that could recommend that judges be voted out of office and the other that would have required judges to get two-thirds support in retention elections every six years in order to keep their positions on the bench.

In a meeting of the Judicial Council — which sets policy for the courts — during the session, Chief Justice Matthew Durrant took the unusual step of publicly criticizing the bills targeting the judiciary, saying that the appointment bill likely would not directly impact him, but taken as a whole the legislation was a “broad attack” on the independence of the courts.

The veto means that there were no major structural changes to the judiciary this session, despite the courts being in the Legislature’s crosshairs. A bill did pass that will impact when associations can bring lawsuits on behalf of the group’s members.

“I am deeply disappointed in some recent decisions that I believe are wrong,” Cox wrote in his letter. “But just because I disagree with the court, does not mean that the system is broken or corrupted. Reasonable and intelligent legal minds can and do disagree on these decisions. It is possible to vehemently oppose a ruling and still support the institution.”

In addition to the veto, according to a news release, Cox signed 200 more bills, including:

• H.B. 65 Firefighter Cancer Amendments, which creates a cancer screening program for firefighters;

• H.B. 69 Government Records and Information Amendments, which makes it almost impossible for citizens to recoup legal fees if they win a lawsuit over access to public records;

• H.B. 100 Food Security Amendments, which provides free school lunch to children in low-income families. “No child should have to learn on an empty stomach, and this bill brings us closer to that goal,” Cox said.

• H.B. 322 Child Actor Regulations, which seeks to protect money made by child influencers;

• S.B. 178 Devices in Public Schools, banning cell phones from schools during class time, which Cox said, “resets the default to encourage healthier, more connected learning environments.”

Thursday is the last day for the governor to sign or veto bills passed by the Legislature.