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.
