Henderson: Elections are run locally. Votes are counted locally.
There have been a lot of concerning inaccuracies since the last election.
Ballot access and election security are not mutually exclusive and do not need to be divisive. #utpol
Henderson: Last year, Utah conducted 462 races and there has not been a single challenge to those races.
Utah’s clerks are good people who have all told her that last year was really hard for them.
There are areas that can be improved, including audits of voter roles. #utpol
Henderson: “We believe in the peaceful transfer of power in the United States of America. We value that every citizen has a right to have their voice heard … and the process by which they do that is free and fair elections.” #utpol
“I fear the talk that has been circulating is serving to undermine, deliberately undermine voter confidence and it concerns me greatly. Because it becomes a threat to our democracy, a threat to our constitutional Republic and our freedom.” #utpol
Weber Clerk Ricky Hatch: Our elections are accurate. Some voters worry about integrity of our elections. No election system is perfect, so we constantly work to improve the elections we administer. #utpol
Hatch serves on US Dept of Homeland Security’s election security, worked on DHS election cybersecurity.
Election risks are mitigated by “an arsenal” of safeguard. He’s walking through those safeguards in the slides above. #utpol
Hatch says the public should visit their clerk and see how the process works.
Rep. Craig Hall (soon to be Judge Hall) says if people get mail-in ballot they are more likely to vote. Has confidence in mail-in system. His constituents have confidence in it. #utpol
Rep. Brammer: We do audits if there is evidence of fraud or abuse. I have not seen any evidence of such. It’s appropriate to look at election issues to improve the process, but “it doesn’t need to add to the cynicism.” #utpol
Now moving to public comment — and things are really going to get wild.
People are going to have a minute each to say …. well, pretty much any nonsense they want. #utpol
Marcie Campbell (sp?) who ran for Senate said she was the victim of many election violations. Need rules and accountability.
Jennifer Dredge (sp?) says Ranked Choice was passed in the dark of night without public input. (Fact check: False) #utpol
Now he’s bringing up the Douglas Frank analysis. Wants an audit.
A guy saying there is no chain of custody for ballots dropped in drop boxes. Ballots are changed with no records.
Wendy Hart: We’re looking at a ballot initiative on election law. #utpol
Hart: “We the people cannot verify.” Can’t see inside machines. She wants hand-counts of votes in precincts. (Terrible, terrible idea.)
Tamara Mullen: We have concerns. Same people who orchestrated coups globally were behind U.S. coups with Antifa and BLM riots. #utpol
Rebecca Connelly (sp?): Ranked choice is a scam and unconstitutional. Elections need to return to paper ballots.
Alena Ericson (sp?): What are you hiding? Perhaps our freedom deserves more effort than putting a ballot in a box. #utpol
A woman whose name I didn’t catch: We have to ensure integrity of elections. How do we know they were above board if we don’t do an audit? (Fact check: Utah clerks audit election results)
Jason something?: We the people are very concerned about the state of our govt. #utpol
If you don’t listen to the people “we’ll have Steve Christiansens in every one of these seats.”
Woman who said she’s a statistician says she found 18k excess ballots cast.
Kevin Thomas alleging treason. If we don’t have fair elections, “we might as well be in slavery.” #utpol
This woman says she “is seeing algorithm.” When Ds go up, Rs go down. We have excess ballots. “Wonky things going on.”
Ron Jones (Sandy mayoral candidate): No one who wants the truth should be opposed to an election audit. #utpol
Sophia Anderson wants LG to provide private voter rolls, says she’s required by law. (Fact check: She is legally prohibited from doing it).
I think I’m turning this off. It’s the same garbage and not informative in any way.
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Your Tuesday Covid report:
🌡 1,343 cases, ⬆️242 from last Tuesday
🎓284 school-aged cases
😔 5 deaths, 3,095
🏥 523 hospitalized
🧪 Testing numbers are messed up. I’ll have to add them later.
📈 7-day avg, 1,283 cases/day, 15.2%/10% pos
💉 8,358 new vax doses #utpol
Suspect this is a little rebound from a lot of schools being out over the wkd. We were down 265 for the wkd, this puts us about flat for last 4 days and still down 842 for week.
Hospitalizations up 6. ICU cases up 5 to 202. Referral ICU 90.2% full.
Risk Ratios
For past 4 weeks, unvaxxed Utahns are:
• 5.8x as likely to test positive for Covid
• 10.7x as likely to be hospitalized
• 14.7x as likely to die
School cases make up 21% of total.
5-10: 137 cases
11-13: 64
14-17: 83
Utah’s weekend Covid report:
🌡 3,036 cases, ⬇️265 from last weekend
🎓608 school-aged cases
😔 23 deaths, 3,090
🏥 517 hospitalized
🧪 18,891 people tested, 16.1% pos. 35,550 total tests, 8.5% pos
📈 7-day avg, 1,247 cases/day, 15.5%/10.2% pos
💉 12,731 new vax doses #utpol
Some weirdness in the weekend numbers.
10/15: 1,329 ⬆️ 85
10/16: 1,092 ⬆️ 232
10/17: 639 ⬇️ 582
Not sure what explains that big swing. Also 24 cases were removed from the total.
Hospitalizations down 42 since Friday. ICU cases down 12 to 197. Referral ICUs 93.7% full. #utpol
Risk Ratios
Over the past four weeks, unvaccinated Utahns are:
• 6x as likely to test positive
• 11.1x as likely to be hospitalized
• 13.1x as likely to die from Covid
Below is the info on the 23 Utahns who died. #utpol
Risk Ratio
Over the past 28 days, unvaccinated Utahns are
• 5.4x as likely to test positive
• 5.9x as likely to be hospitalized
• 4.1x as likely to die.
Over the past week, unvaxxed people account for 88% of cases.
In last three weeks cases and hospitalizations have steadily risen. We don’t want to be here. Good news is vaccinations have been steady. Discouraged by large number not vaxxed. #utpol
@GovCox Cox: To those health care providers, our heart breaks that you’re going through this again. Especially caring for people who didn’t take the opportunity to protect themselves.
For first time in pandemic we had a moment Friday evening where there was no ICU space. #utpol
Cox: Rural hospital was looking to transfer a patient to a referral ICU and was turned away. Only lasted a few hours but in critical care every minute counts.
Cox says he will meet with the Lege this week. He’s met with Lege leaders regularly over last two weeks. #utpol