When it comes to running an election, most registered voters know very little about the process involved at their county clerk’s office. This can stoke concerns about voting and outcomes.

For this reason, Sutherland Institute wanted to go behind the scenes for a Q&A with a county clerk’s office as they navigate the 2020 election.

 “Running an election is like conducting an orchestra with complex timelines for each piece of the election,” says Amelia Powers Gardner, Utah County Clerk. “You can’t just change one thing without affecting many other areas. Each area has its own timelines that converge on Election Day. Many of these processes and timelines begin months before the election and each is governed by a myriad of federal, state, and local laws.”

Christine Cooke, education policy fellow at Sutherland Institute: There is a lot of discussion about voter fraud due to mail-in ballots. What security measures do you have in place to prevent fraud? Can you walk us through those steps?

Gardner: Drop boxes: We offer drop boxes as a secure and direct return method for all ballots. Any voter that wants to ensure that our office directly receives their ballot back should use our secure ballot drop boxes. Only sworn election workers retrieve ballots from drop boxes and ensure privacy and security in obtaining returned ballots.

Voter list maintenance: We spend a significant amount of time and effort ensuring that our voter list is up to date so that ballots are delivered to the right people, in the right place, at the right time. Ongoing voter list maintenance ensures a reduced number of ballots that are misdelivered and ensure that the right voters get their ballots in a timely fashion. This is a year-round effort.

Signature comparison: We have invested significantly in software, systems, and processes to ensure that every ballot voter affidavit returned is compared with the signatures we have on file for each voter. We will not accept nor count a ballot that has not been properly signed or that does not match the signature on file for that voter. 

Cooke: What causes the most confusion for people when voting with a mail-in ballot?

Gardner: Voters may forget to sign the attached voter affidavit on the return envelope. They may not realize they can return ballots through our secure drop boxes and save postage by doing so. Voters may also not realize that they can correct errors on their ballot by striking through a candidate and making clear their vote choices on the ballot. We take voter intent into account when determining who a voter intended to cast a vote for.

Cooke: When it comes to voting, what are the separate roles of the county clerk’s office versus the lieutenant governor’s office?

Gardner: The local county clerk ensures correct ballot design, print, and mail of ballots. Then receives ballots back. They ensure the voting process and count all votes and then report election results to the state. 

The lieutenant governor’s office receives election totals from each county. The bulk of the work in running an election takes place in the local counties as administered by each local county clerk. The lieutenant governor’s office often serves as a resource for the local clerks running the election.

Cooke: What is the most common misperception associated with the work you do? 

Gardner: The most common misconception is that elections happen one day every other year. Not only do we have a minimum of 2 elections every year, but the business of running successful elections is year-round. There are municipal primary and general elections in odd years. There are at least a primary and general election for county, state, and federal elections every even year. A presidential primary is often a separate election in addition.

Some voters do not realize the importance of the ongoing data management for the voter list. In order to have a successful by-mail election, we must ensure we have accurate data for each voter and we must manage and track the movements of each voter in the county throughout the year. We are constantly updating our registration list with each update of every voter. We get hundreds of updates each week from the driver’s license bureau of voters who have moved or newly arrived in our county. This is critical to ensuring that at each election voters get the ballot they are expecting.

Running an election is like conducting an orchestra with complex timelines for each piece of the election. You can’t just change one thing without affecting many other areas. Each area has its own timelines that converge on Election Day. Many of these processes and timelines begin months before the election and each is governed by a myriad of federal, state, and local laws.