This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2016, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

Let's put it bluntly. Sherrie Swenson, Salt Lake County clerk, and an array of honest politicians across Utah, have blindly played into the hands of some clever Utah Republicans to create a fixed-in-granite, for time and all eternity, GOP political majority.

Swenson, other slow-ball idealists, the cheerleading media/press and new age utopians have all naively fallen for it. They've been grifted.

For the new "Mail-In" voting law is engineered with the openly stated goal to all but kill off the in-person Election Day ballot box voting. This means a dangerous end to last-hours surge-voting in all future elections.

Republicans should be ashamed. Democrats, Independents, Socialists, Libertarians, enviro-activists and school-choicers should be enraged. And well-intentioned supporters like Sherrie Swenson and the media/press should stop being easily hustled, blind-as-bats, poindexters.

Think for a minute how catastrophic mail-in-only voting will ultimately be. It will destroy the irreplaceable time frame for heroic, come-from-behind challengers to unseat old boy incumbents.

How? Because so much crucial information about candidates (or issues), especially in tight races, is often not revealed until the closing days/hours of a campaign. Encouraging Utahns to vote several weeks early, before all the facts can come out, endorses partisan dumbness. For it means votes will have been cast in early, irreversible ignorance.

Just ask Jonathan Johnson, current Republican primary candidate for governor. His chances for a primary victory over incumbent Gary Herbert (with 26 years of office-holding name recognition) have been hobbled by early mail-in voting. This in spite of whatever is now revealed about disturbing, oddball fund-raising belief systems the current governor practices. Too many votes are already in the mail.

Now think about what a poor Democratic gubernatorial candidate might face this fall. With this kind of law, he may not have a whispered prayer to overtake deep-pocketed, entrenched opponents like Herbert. For in the last weeks of this fall's election, no matter what Herbert scandal bomb might detonate, critical votes will have already been cast.

All in the name of an unproven, '60s groovy, very expensive, theoretically superior, morally smug, dangerous-voting-booths-invite-pedophiles-into-schools, bureaucratically convenient, no-drama-here, stop-the-anger, Socratic fantasy.

Goodbye dark-horse candidates. Adios last minute, high explosive scandals that can throw the bums out. Aloha last week/final hours polling fever that can tip a close race. And absolutely no more chances for future underdog, prairie-fire-campaign revolutionaries like Bernie Sanders bucking off the ruling elite.

Until now, scrappy political challengers (or causes) could win against impossible odds. Sometimes armed only with a small bullhorn, idealism, a loyal band of followers and the truth. Surprising victories came from relentless travel, tireless speech making, late night meetings, letters to the editor, last-minute endorsements, truth squads and a do-or-die determination to win. For candidates had the time to create the necessary critical mass to crescendo into an unexpected win. Early mail-in voting will end it all.

Early voting might also destroy the means for the media/press to do their jobs. Three-weeks-early deadline might be the standard newsroom practice for reporters to uncover facts purposely hidden by a candidate. No more embarrassing last-minute revelations about drunk driving records, sweetheart loans, union graft, secret cash gifts, dogs on the station wagon roof, contract kick-backs, pregnant mistresses or phony war records.

Mail-in-early/kill-off-the-ballot-box elections are guaranteed to destroy a non-anointed challenger's chances to ever win again. And this is exactly what vote-fat incumbents and some Utah GOP zealots are secretly gloating over.

For mail-in-only voting will become as thrilling as paying your cable bill.

So remember, especially all you sedentary millennials: Vote Early by Mail and Vote Blindly. It's only your future.

Janalee Tobias is a Republican activist for guns, green space and grassroots. G.G. Panos is a long-time writer and free-market Republican nullifidian.