A Republican state lawmaker raised a question about fraud in Utah’s GOP primary election in an inflammatory social media post over the weekend, but state officials say every voter — all eight of them — were able to cast a ballot for their preferred candidates.
Rep. Phil Lyman, R-Blanding, posted on Facebook early Sunday morning that he had several “reports” from people who claimed a voting machine changed their in-person vote for Sen. Mike Lee to Becky Edwards. Lyman, who tried to get rid of the state’s mail-in voting system after making claims of election anomalies during the 2020 presidential election, offered no proof, but wrote, “Utah Voter Fraud?” over an image of the American flag.
Edwards and Ally Isom are challenging Lee in Tuesday’s GOP primary election.
The Utah Lieutenant Governor’s Office, which oversees elections in the state, saw social media posts alleging irregularities and looked into the claim. Ryan Cowley, state elections director, said only eight voters in Wasatch County had used the machine.
“From everything that we’ve seen, the votes were recorded correctly for those voters,” Cowley told KSL-TV and KSL Newsradio.
Cowley said the touch-screen ballot marking devices were set to a smaller font size to get all the races on one screen, squeezing the boxes close together. The font size has now been enlarged to make it easier for voters to make their choices, he said.
Voters are given three opportunities to verify their selections, including a printed...
The visual verification might not be accessible to you. We recommend you to use the audio verification instead. Important: after clicking play, you will hear 6 digits. Please wait until the audio f...