SALT LAKE CITY — In the face of President Donald Trump's threat to eliminate mail-in voting, Utah Governor Spencer Cox defended the state's program, adding that the U.S. Constitution is "very clear" regarding state election rights.
Despite investigations that have proved there were no signs of widespread voter fraud, Trump has continuously blamed his 2020 election defeat on mail-in voting and promised this week "to get rid" of absentee ballots.
During his monthly news conference on Thursday, Cox said he was proud of the state's mail-in system, calling the state an "outlier" when it comes to implementing the program while touting how it has proven to be safe through longtime efforts.
"The time that we took, the processes that we've gone through, the changes that we've made over time, including last year, to make sure that mail-in voting is safe, most states who do mail-in voting did not do that," said the governor, who claimed other unnamed states should be "more serious about voting integrity."
While Cox added that Trump was right to be extremely cautious about absentee voting, when pressed about how far Utah would go to defend its authority to administer elections in the state, the governor shared his belief that the president or his administration did not have the power to unilaterally abolish systems already in place.
"The Constitution is very clear that it's in the purview of the states and not the federal government, and I think states should defend that," said Cox.
Cox added that Utah would be happy to share any mail-in voting expertise with other states that were looking to shore up their voting integrity.
