Rep. Phil Lyman cited concerns with election security, but election officials said there are "no gaping holes" with Utah’s vote-by-mail system. HB371 would have made in-person voting the default in Utah, and voters would need to manually request absentee ballots. Election officials and others argued that it would disenfranchise rural voters, elderly voters and voters with disabilities.
A bill that would have returned Utah to in-person voting by default failed to advance from committee on Wednesday after opponents argued that it could disenfranchise voters and had few discernible security benefits.