A new election bill is making its way through the Utah Legislature after last year's election controversy between certain legislators and the Utah County Clerk.
House Bill 69, sponsored by Representative Stephanie Gricius, is going through the Senate after passing unanimously in the House. The fate of the bill is going to determine whether or not the method by which a voter returned a mailed ballot or if the voter paid postage on a ballot returned by mail will be considered private records that should not be disclosed.
The bill states that government officers may not access or release government information unless it is directly related to their professional duties.
It would specify that releasing such information shouldn't be done "for a primarily personal purpose," which includes political purposes.
Utah County Clerk Aaron Davidson said this provision goes against the philosophy of the Government Records Access and Management Act, also known as GRAMA.
"And so this code is saying I can't reveal anything that's a personal pet project of my own. But that's all GRAMA requests are. It's a person wanting to find something out because they have a personal interest in it," Davidson said.
Davidson claimed in a recent House committee meeting that the bill was drafted in response to a June 2024 feud between him and Senator Mike McKell, in which McKell criticized Davidson's decision to stop requiring Utah County to automatically pay return postage for ballots returned by mail.
However, Representative Gricius said her bill will only prohibit government officials from weaponizing information.
"We looked at what was already public and said, 'Okay, these things stay public. If it's not already listed on there, it's private and you can't weaponize information,'" Gricius said in the House committee meeting.
HB 69 was approved unanimously by the Senate Government Operations Committee last week and will now go to the Senate floor.