Not so fast-cast: Utah Lieutenant Governor’s office slows down new speedy voting method due to vote total discrepancies in Utah County
November 7, 2024
By: Rachel Hottendorf
Fast Cast Voting, a new method of casting ballots for voters in Utah County, was put to the test for the first time during the County’s June 2024 Primaries but issues with voter and ballot reconciliations are raising concerns over just how fast the new method is.
Many voters still prefer to cast their ballot in person on Election Day but long waits at polling places can deter or make it more difficult for voters to participate. To address this issue, Utah County implemented Fast Cast Voting which allows voters to complete their mail-in ballot at their convenience and submit it by scanning it into the designated Fast Cast tabulator at their polling place on Election Day. Voters must still show an ID and complete the voter check-in process, but they no longer have to wait in a general voter line or spend time filling out their ballot once inside of their polling place.
Following experimentation in the County’s 2023 municipal elections, Fast Cast Voting was implemented county-wide for use in the 2024 primaries, offering voters the option to use it both on Election Day and during early-vote periods as well. In total, 743 votes were cast using the Fast Cast Voting method across nine polling locations in the 2024 primaries. Concerns over the reconciliation, however, prompted the Lieutenant Governor’s staff to conduct a review which ultimately discovered that across three locations, including the early voting location, 19 more votes were cast than voters were checked in.
The review identified several key issues that could help explain the reconciliation discrepancies. Perhaps most concerning is that a “key security feature must be disabled” on the tabulators used to read the Fast Act mail-in ballots. By disabling the feature, the tabulator is able to read any ballot processed through it, “creating the potential for multiple ballots to be scanned in by a single voter.” Such concerns were known prior to the program’s use in the Primaries, with Director of Elections Ryan Cowley expressing concern about the potential for voters to fraudulently scan multiple ballots. In addition, the review found that voter verification methods were not adhered to by poll workers, potentially resulting in Fast Cast voters whose “check in-process was not fully completed” or may have “skipped the check-in process altogether.” Failure of poll worker to conduct such required ballot reconciliations is a violation of Utah Election Code and it is a violation of Utah law for voters to fail to complete the check-in process or fraudulently cast multiple ballots.
Despite acknowledging that a breakdown in the system occurred, the County and State are left without any way to pinpoint exactly where the breakdown happened. There seems to be a blame game of sorts occurring with clerks, poll workers, and clerk staff all pointing the finger at each other. What is clear, according to the Lieutenant Governor’s report is that the fast cast voting used in the primaries “lacked key statutory controls and created an environment where fraudulent and/or unauthorized ballots were cast.” What started as an idea to make voting easier and faster on Election Day has, in practice, created greater opportunity for voter fraud challenges to arise. Should Utah County wish to use the fast cast voting method in the upcoming General Elections, it “must either abandon the ‘fast cast’ voting method or make significant modifications.”
For further reading:
https://vote.utahcounty.gov/voter-information
https://vote.utah.gov/wp-content/uploads/sites/42/2024/09/Final-Utah-County-Report.pdf