A straightforward proposal to allow Utahns purchasing a hunting or fishing license to receive a voter registration form took an unexpected and controversial turn when it hit the House floor this week.
Layton Republican Rep. Trevor Lee, the legislation’s sponsor, introduced a last-minute change so the bill now allows “the lieutenant governor or the legislative auditor general to contract with a third-party to assist in the review and identification of inaccuracies in the voter registration database.”
Lee described the change as small, but it drew opposition from lawmakers of both major parties. The bill passed the House with a tight 39-32 vote and now goes to the Senate for consideration.
“I appreciate what the sponsor is trying to do here, but I have huge concerns,” Sandy Democratic Rep. Andrew Stoddard told the House on Monday. “One is about the change of the tone of the bill. This bill started out initially as a very straightforward bill with no opposition to now having a very concerning part added to it with this substitute.”
The bill, according to Stoddard, would allow the state government to hand over private information, like driver’s license records, vital records, among others, to an outside company. Concerns extend from the cost of that potential initiative to the potential of privacy breaches, he said.
“I would rather see this go through the regular committee process and be vetted as a (request for appropriations), where we know that there are government agencies who will take care of this information and will be responsible with it,” Stoddard said, “as opposed to giving carte blanche to some third party that we know nothing about to handle all this private information.”
And, Stoddard added, without much time to properly vet the bill, the state may be putting Utahns’ private information at risk.
However, according to Lee, his bill remained straightforward, only adding an optional tool to the Lieutenant Governor’s office and the legislative auditor general.
“If they would like to do that, if they feel like there are concerns, they don’t have to use it. They don’t have to go down this path,” Lee said. “But it gives them more in their quivers that they can use to help with our election integrity and help verify voter records and ensure trust in our elections.”
Lieutenant Governor Deidre Henderson, the state’s top election official, said Lee hadn’t worked with her office in any way.
This story was initially published by Utah News Dispatch.
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About the Author
Alixel Cabrera covers the status of diverse Utah communities, growth, infrastructure and education for Utah News Dispatch.
Utah News Dispatch is part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization.
