SALT LAKE CITY — Utah voters will receive their ballots in the mail in October ahead of the upcoming midterm election — a system that data shows has dramatically increased participation in the state.
In the two midterm elections before mail-in voting took hold in Utah, the state had one of the worst voter turnout records in the country, recording 37% turnout in 2010 and 30% in 2014.
In the next two midterms conducted with mail-in voting, turnout rose to 51% and 47%, respectively — an average increase of 15 percentage points. More than 90% of voters chose to cast their ballots by mail.
That shift translated to hundreds of thousands more Utahns participating in the democratic process.
