A little-reported but increasingly significant political development is emerging in Utah: the end of early voting, limitation of absentee ballots to those who have legitimate excuses for showing up on Election Day, and restoring the vote count to precinct poll workers who send the results to the state once they are certified.
At first glance, the full package sounds as if it emerged from a time warp.
But with growing questions about the veracity of computerized voting machines and resulting doubts about final counts, several Utah residents are pursuing a petition drive to place a measure on the statewide ballot this fall that would restore traditional means of casting votes.
“A system of voting to be convenient has been created, and we are now set up for a climate of fraud,” veteran Republican political consultant Lew Moore told Newsmax during a recent interview.
Moore, the national campaign manager for the 2008 presidential bid of Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, explained that the vote-by-mail system in which all Beehive State voters get a ballot weeks before the November elections “ends the concept of the secret ballot.”
“When you have a ballot lying around your home for a few weeks before the election, the temptation is there for friends and family to attempt to influence you on your vote,” said Moore, contrasting this system to that of the voting booth when a voter is alone and “can cast a ballot that is truly secret.”
He added that the concept of limiting absentee voting to those who have legitimate excuses for being unable to show up on the first Tuesday in November is “nothing new, and has been on the books since 1953.”
“I actually looked it up in the state code in the Brigham Young University Law Library, and it states clearly that absentee voting is permitted only if someone ‘is unable to vote in person on Election Day’… period,” Moore told Newsmax.
Gathering together like-minded Utahns in an almost-exclusively volunteer-run organization, Moore must collect and submit 138,000 signatures from throughout the state for verification no later than Feb. 15.
If the “magic 138,000” are certified, the measure to limit voting to those who show up at the polls or have legitimate reasons for absentee voting will be on the ballot this November.
A possibly controversial piece of the voting revision package could be the elimination of voting machines, except in the cases of the handicapped. While skeptical of early voting and absentee voting without limits, voters have long been comfortable with machines.
But Moore insists there will be little complaining about this and that primarily voting with paper ballots ensures a fair count — one that will be handled by clerks in Utah’s 29 counties and then sent on for announcement to the office of the lieutenant governor (in whose hands lies election oversight, Utah having no secretary of state).
A case of “back to the future?” A pining for the past? In any event, Utahns will know whether they have a chance to vote on restoring their former ways of voting in a few days.
John Gizzi is chief political columnist and White House correspondent for Newsmax. For more of his reports, Go Here Now.
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