Bill is voter suppression lite

The Utah House last week passed a bill with the stated goal of making Utah look marginally more democratic than it really is, by actually making it slightly less democratic.

Call it voter suppression lite.

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Sponsor Rep. Kraig Powell, a Heber City Republican, convinced 45 other representatives, including some Democrats, to approve his HB253. That bill would set up a multi-stage process that would end with some seldom-participating voters being struck from the rolls.

Because it is likely such a law would affect relatively few people, it doesn’t fully belong in the category of more overt efforts undertaken by other state legislatures, mostly under Republican control, to cut down on the number of otherwise qualified adults, mostly Democrats, who would be legally able to cast a ballot. It isn’t a particularly burdensome requirement that voters provide multiple IDs or proof of citizenship.

It would, though, make a lot of added work for county election officers.

Here’s how such a law would work: Counties would have to keep track of who did or did not vote in each general election. Voters who missed two consecutive rounds would be sent a letter asking them to verify their address. If that letter comes back, marked undeliverable by the U.S. Postal Service, the county would send out another letter, warning that a failure to vote in the next two general elections will mean they will be removed from the list of registered voters.

All that mail pong is designed to get around the federal Voting Rights Act requirement that states may not cancel the registration of any voter just for skipping a few elections. Legislative staff estimates the mailing and postage cost of the annual paperwork as upwards of $118,500 statewide. But that doesn’t count all the staff time that would be involved.

And all for mostly cosmetic reasons. Powell worries that the total number of registered voters is artificially inflated by carrying the names of people who have moved away or died. And that skews the voter turnout numbers lower than they would be with a better-maintained voter list.

Maybe. But it is a particularly devious move in Utah, where moderate voters are so often uninterested in the process because most decisions are made in party caucuses and conventions. Should the day ever come that those voters find themselves energized by a hot issue — oh, say, repealing a state law to provide tax-funded vouchers to private schools — they could well show up at the polls for the first time in a long time, only to find themselves declared nonpersons by HB253.

This bill is a bad idea. The Senate should shelve it.