‘Everybody’s vote counts’: Lt. Gov visits Washington County for post-election audit

ST. GEORGE — Utah’s lieutenant governor paid a visit to St. George Friday to observe a post-election audit conducted by the Washington County Clerk/Auditor’s Office. While here, she expressed her faith in the state’s election security and practices.

Lt. Governor Deidre Henderson visits the Washington County Clerk/Auditor’s Office to observe the post-election audit process, St. George, Utah, July 8, 2022 | Photo by Mori Kessler, St. George News

Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson visited the clerk/auditor’s office at the Washington County Administration Building to observe how county staff carried out procedures set in place by the lieutenant governor’s office, which oversees state elections. Washington County is just one of the state’s 29 counties that Henderson and members of her staff have visited for post-election audit observations.

“All of our counties, when they run elections, they do post-election audits to make sure machines are working accurately and that the votes on the ballots actually reflect the tallies,” Henderson said. “We just want to make sure the counties are doing their jobs correctly and that everybody’s vote counts and is counted correctly.”

Regarding possible election anomalies in Washington County, Henderson said her office has yet to discover any.

“They typically don’t see anomalies when they do these audits,” she said, “but they always do them (the audits) to double-check.”

Post-election audits in Utah have been routine for many years and were not a recent practice triggered by the controversy surrounding the 2020 presidential election.

Staff of the Washington County Clerk/Auditor’s Office engage in a routine post-election audit, St. George, Utah, July 8, 2022 | Photo by Mori Kessler, St. George News

While the lieutenant governor’s office oversees election process and policy in the state, individual counties are left to conduct elections within their boundaries. Henderson said doing it this way helps keep the elections closer to the people while also adding an additional measure of security.

Washington County Clerk/Auditor Susan Lewis said it also helped spread out resources and manpower.

As to the process of the post-audit itself, Lewis and her staff showed Henderson, members of the public and local media how it was done.

Before the process begins, the lieutenant governor’s office sends random batch numbers to the clerk/auditor’s office for review. Each batch consists of a bundle of ballots with a corresponding number. These batches, of which there are many, are kept in green totes and locked away until they are pulled out for the post-election audit.

From there Lewis and her staff review the ballots and their accompanying signatures to make sure everything is in order. After they are reviewed and approved, the ballots are returned to the batch and placed back in the tote they were taken from.

Staff of the Washington County Clerk/Auditor’s Office engage in a routine post-election audit, St. George, Utah, July 8, 2022 | Photo by Mori Kessler, St. George News

“We want to make sure that the people that live here are comfortable with how we run an election,” Lewis said. “We want the public to come and see the process, so it’s an open public meeting they can come and participate in.”

The Washington County Commission responded to worries concerning local elections earlier this year and noted at the time that the post-election audit was just one of several redundancies in the procedures the county followed to promote election security.

Similar worries over election security came from voters in the wake of the 2020 election, and former President Donald Trump’s claims there was widespread election fraud.

The security of mail-in ballots also has been a concern for some. One Southern Utah lawmaker introduced legislation earlier this year that would replace mail-in ballots with in-person voting, which he argued was less susceptible to fraud. The bill ultimately died in committee.

Both Henderson and Lewis said mail-in ballots are extremely popular across the county and the state.

As per state law, the county did provide in-person voting locations for early voting and on Election Day. All together, 748 people voting in person versus the tens of thousands to voted by mail, Lewis said.

Copyright St. George News, SaintGeorgeUtah.com LLC, 2022, all rights reserved.

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