OGDEN — Smile when you cast your ballot if you use one of the many drop boxes around Weber County — you’ll be on camera.

To comply with House Bill 313, approved by Utah lawmakers earlier this year, all 21 drop boxes in the county are monitored by surveillance cameras, a requirement implemented in the wake of increased talk about election security dating to the 2020 presidential vote. Mail-in ballots ahead of the June 28 primary voting deadline went out to registered voters last week and are starting to trickle in to the Weber County Elections Office.

Lauren Shafer, director of the Weber County Elections Office, sees the change as a preventive measure. She’s not aware of any election shenanigans in past Weber County elections at drop boxes. Voters using mail-in ballots can send them in via the U.S. Postal Service or place them in any of the 21 drop boxes around the county.

“I think it’s more of a proactive action rather than a reactive one,” she said.

Weber County Commissioners addressed the issue Tuesday, approving interlocal agreements that set out parameters of camera use with 10 Weber County cities. The county oversees elections through the elections office, with drop boxes at the municipal buildings of 14 Weber County locales, the five county-operated libraries, the Weber Center in Ogden and the Weber State University campus.

Sylvia Salisbury, an Ogden resident, addressed the surveillance issue during the public comment section of Tuesday’s county commission meeting, referencing the film “2,000 Mules” and saying she assumed that was the spur behind placement of cameras at drop boxes. The movie alleges voter fraud in the 2020 presidential vote, charging that “2,000 people collected 400,000 illegal votes and delivered them to vote drop-boxes in key states that went for Joe Biden,” according to PolitiFact. That’s a nonprofit media fact-checking organization operated by the Poynter Institute.

Weber County Clerk-Auditor Ricky Hatch responded, saying the film was not the spur for action, that efforts to craft HB 313 were underway before it came out. He has not seen the movie, though he has read analysis about it, but cast doubt on its premises. “The move makes a lot of insinuations and connections that are not yet proven,” he said.

Likewise, PolitiFact noted that Bill Barr, the U.S. attorney general under President Donald Trump, “denigrated evidence of voter fraud presented in … ‘2000 Mules’ as ‘singularly unimpressive'” in an interview with investigators from the U.S. House committee probing the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack. Trump has vociferously charged, without solid evidence, that the 2020 presidential vote was fraudulent.

Salisbury also noted that Ogden wasn’t among the 10 cities and asked why. Tuesday’s interlocal agreements are with Farr West, Harrisville, Marriott-Slaterville, Plain City, Pleasant View, Riverdale, South Ogden, Uintah, Washington Terrace and West Haven.

Hatch, in response, said another series of interlocal agreements are in the works, including one with Ogden. They will likely be up for consideration by county commissioners in coming weeks.

Though HB 313 requires surveillance cameras, Shafer said they had already been in place in prior elections at most drop box sites in Weber County, including the five Weber County Library System branches. Likewise, though interlocal agreements may still be in the offing with some locales, cameras are monitoring all 21 drop boxes in the county, she said.

Around 67,000-68,000 ballots went out last week to registered voters in Weber County, Shafer said, and nearly 5,200 had been returned as of Tuesday morning. Several races among Republicans are on the primary ballot as well as the three-way race for the District 6 seat on the Weber School Board.

Newsletter