Bill to require in-person ID to return by-mail ballots stalls in Utah Senate

A Utah lawmaker’s effort to require Utahns to return their by-mail ballots in person while showing a form of identification appears to have hit a dead end for a second year in a row. 

Rep. Jefferson Burton’s bill, HB479, stalled in a Senate committee Tuesday night after Senate Majority Assistant Whip Mike McKell, the bill’s Senate sponsor, motioned to move on with the committee’s agenda without taking action on the bill. 

McKell, R-Spanish Fork, said senators were concerned about the logistics of the bill and whether it’s something clerks across the state could actually implement. 

McKell also pointed to a bill that he and Burton successfully sponsored last year that required voters to write four digits of their state ID number on their by-mail ballots’ return envelopes while also slowly phasing out Utah’s current automatic vote-by-mail system by requiring voters to opt in to voting by mail every eight years. 

Utah lawmakers again weigh whether to require in-person ID for by-mail ballots

“I think you landed a really, really good bill” last year,  McKell told Burton, R-Provo. He added that senators are open to continuing to work on the issue, but he motioned to move on with the committee’s agenda without taking action — effectively blocking the bill from moving forward. 

This year, with HB479, Burton tried again to establish in-person voter ID requirements for by-mail ballots that are turned in at drop boxes. Those in-person checks would take effect beginning in 2027, and starting in 2029, Utahns would not receive a by-mail ballot unless they request one every eight years. They would not be allowed to return a ballot by mail unless they make a “timely” request to do so. 

In effect, Burton’s bill would have further unraveled voting by mail in Utah. 

Now, with less than three days left of the 2026 Utah Legislature’s general session, Burton’s bill is not officially dead until lawmakers adjourn no later than midnight on Friday. But barring a major, final-hour maneuver from the House, it doesn’t appear likely to find traction.  

McKell told reporters on Wednesday that the biggest unresolved hurdle with Burton’s legislation is “we just haven’t solved the logistical problem of how to administer it.” 

Critics argued Burton’s bill would make it harder for many Utahns to vote while saddling counties with an expensive unfunded mandate by requiring them to staff ballot drop boxes to check voter IDs. 

Fiscal analysts estimated that Burton’s bill could cost as much as $10 million — though Burton in a House committee last week disputed that fiscal note, saying that it was based on every voter in the state using a drop box to return their ballots.

Utah Legislature approves bill to require voter ID, phase out automatic voting by mail by 2029

Burton and the bill’s highest-ranking supporter, House Speaker Mike Schultz, R-Hooper, have argued in-person ID requirements would help increase confidence in Utah’s voting system and prevent voter fraud. 

Multiple audits have shown that Utah’s vote-by-mail system does not have widespread fraud, but Schultz and Burton have argued those audits have found too many instances of errors in the voter rolls, like two ballots cast in 2023 by “dead” voters. That was out of more than 2 million registered voters.  

“I understand that the House really wants to dial in and make sure the right people are voting, and I think we all share that concern,” McKell said. “But it’s just the logistics of the bill. It just wasn’t quite there yet, and we’re running out of time.” 

Senate President Stuart Adams, R-Layton, said he “liked” the bill and would have liked to see “if we couldn’t get it landed” to commission a study on the issue, but he agreed the “logistics of it need to be figured out.” 

“Most people take their ballot to (a) dropbox, and I’m not sure it hurts to have to show your ID as  you drop them off,” Adam said, indicating he supports Burton’s bill in concept. However, he also said lawmakers do need more time to “figure out” how to do that. 

“We’re just trying to make sure we maintain the convenience and maintain security,” Adams said. 

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