SALT LAKE CITY — Vote-by-mail has increased voter participation in Utah, with midterm election turnout jumping 30% after most counties adopted the system between 2014 and 2018.
I analyzed Utah's voting data over the past three decades and found Utah's participation was notably low in 1996 and dropped again in 2008, at 66% and 68%, respectively.
In 2020, turnout was at 90%, and in 2024, it was 85%.
The transformation began when individual Utah counties started experimenting with vote-by-mail. The results were immediate and striking. While presidential election turnout showed gradual increases, the real impact appeared in midterm elections.
The contrast is stark when comparing specific elections. In 2010, despite significant Tea Party activism and interest in Mike Lee's Senate campaign, midterm turnout reached only 52%. By 2018, with vote-by-mail standard in most Utah counties, that number jumped to 76%.
Utah County itself provides a compelling case study. In 2018, most Utah counties had adopted vote-by-mail, but Utah County had not yet made the switch. The result was telling: Utah County's turnout was 12% lower than its northern neighbor on the Wasatch Front. By the 2022 midterms, after Utah County implemented vote-by-mail, its turnout matched other major Utah counties — 3% lower than Salt Lake and Davis Counties and on par with Weber County.
Despite concerns about election security, Utah's experience with vote-by-mail has been remarkably clean. The largest documented case of voter fraud in modern Utah history occurred in tiny Daggett County, with a population under 1,000. Before the 2006 election, nearly 30 claimed to be new residents, sharing the same address... all connected to the same candidate for sheriff.
The Conservative Heritage Foundation tracks election fraud cases in courts around the country. Aside from the Daggett County incident, which was quite traditional, old-fashioned voter fraud, it lists no voter fraud cases in Utah dating back to 1982.
