ST. GEORGE, Utah — Some justices on the U.S. Supreme Court expressed agreement Monday that mail-in ballots received after election day shouldn’t count, even if postmarked correctly. That’s something they’ve been doing in Washington County, but only after learning the hard way.
"I can only guarantee a couple things," explained Washington County Clerk Ryan Sullivan. "I can guarantee you that if you put your ballot in a drop box that it will make it here to our election center.
"But I just can't guarantee that even if you mail your ballot early, that's going to get to us; it's always that risk."
Sullivan had just come on as county clerk ahead of the June 2024 Utah Republican Congressional primary, in which 660 Washington County ballots were thrown out. That number may not seem like much, but Celeste Maloy defeated Colby Jenkins by just 186 votes. Jenkins sought a court order to have those tossed ballots counted, which the Utah Supreme Court rejected.
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Since that moment, Sullivan has hammered home that only ballots received by 8 p.m. on election day are counted — mailed in or not.
After people learned that mail from southern Utah was being processed in Las Vegas, the local postmaster now keeps ballots in the last week of an election. Even so, Sullivan says it’s more of a guarantee a ballot will be counted if it’s delivered to a drop box up to 8 p.m. on election night.
Bills by the state legislature and cases before the Supreme Court have been aimed at reducing mail-in voting or eliminating it. Most Utah state officials, including Governor Cox, have expressed that mail-in voting has been successful at increasing voter turnout. The Heritage Foundation shared that other than three instances in 2008, there have been no vote-by-mail fraud instances in the state.
There are still skeptics, including Vista resident, Dr. Paul Gooch, but not for the reason you might think.
"Let's just take out all of the arguments about whether it's secure or not secure, and whether it disenfranchises people or not," said Gooch. "I'm not gathering with my neighbors, and voting in a neighborhood precinct with your neighbors is such a gathering, connecting experience."
It’s the camaraderie that Gooch misses. He seldom mails in a ballot, but agrees that mail-in voting can still be there for people with extenuating circumstances.
"But for the rest of us, we ought to be getting together," he said, "in our neighborhoods with our neighbors, in our local precinct voting, polling locations, not some big mass center."
