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The House gave final approval Thursday to a bill designed to clean up voter rolls and help remove people who are dead or who have moved.
The House voted 49-20 to approve Senate amendments to HB253, and sent it to Gov. Gary Herbert for his signature.
Rep. Kraig Powell, R-Heber City, sponsor of the bill, said it would require county clerks to send mailings to people who do not vote in two consecutive general elections to verify their address. If the U.S. Postal Service sends that mailing back saying it was undeliverable, clerks will send a second letter.
The second will notify the voters that if they fail to vote in one of the next two general elections or fail to contact their offices to verify their addresses, their names will be removed from the rolls.
Early versions of the bill were controversial because critics said it could violate the federal Voting Rights Act, which bans removing voters from registration rolls merely for not voting. Powell says names would be removed because of the notice of a bad address — as is allowed by the Voting Rights Act — and would give people ample time and opportunity to correct it.
The bill passed after research by the Pew Center for the States reported to the Lieutenant Governor's Office earlier this month that 40 percent of voter registrations in Utah have problems — with bad addresses, duplications or even registering the dead.
Lee Davidson