H.B. 583 Initiative and Referenda Signature Amendments: transcript

House Government Operations Committee, Feb 27, 2026

1. Committee chair (presiding)35:17

   Alright. He does. Rep, Representative Stoddard, it is always a pleasure to have you in front of the committee. Um, we will turn the time over to you, sir.

2. Rep. Andrew Stoddard35:25

   Thank you. And I want to thank the chair and committee members for, um, just hearing all these wonderful ideas that I have this session. Uh, non-controversial, not novel, just, just good solid ideas. Um, so I, I'm gonna present this bill with a caveat that I, I think this is something we need to look at, but I don't think we have what we need currently in our clerk's offices to allow this to happen. Um, what this bill would do would allow someone to cure their signature on a initiative or a referendum petition. We have this for our ballots and it's great and works great. Um, but we don't have this for initiative and referendum and if we've learned anything over the last eight years, it's how important these signatures are on these and verifying them and making sure that we have people that sign them, know they're signing 'em, and that they're actually counting. And so, um, that's, that's really what the bill does. Like I said, we, we don't have the technology yet to make this feasible, but I, I think it's something we need to keep on our radar. And, and I'm open to any questions.

3. Committee chair (presiding)36:36

   Alright. Um, you certainly are flashy representative, but I see your point, and so I'm glad you brought the bill forward. It's good to have this discussion. Uh, we'll go to, I think Keller's light was on first, and then we'll go to Representative Hayes after that.

4. Rep. Keller36:51

   Uh, sorry to dominate the questions. Mr. Chair, you, you left out, uh, nomination petitions and, and only suggested this process for initiative and referenda. Uh, why is that? Do you not believe there's a, a similar cure process could be useful for nomination petitions?

5. Rep. Andrew Stoddard37:08

   Well, I think we should get rid of SB 54. Just kidding. Um, no, that was, um, I, I honestly, it's partly I did, I did not expect this bill to be drafted in time or get done. But yeah, anytime we are adding a signature to something dealing with elections, I think we should be able to cure that. And so, uh, as I said, something I would've fixed. But knowing that we don't have the capability to put this actually into play, I, I opted not to do a sub.

6. Rep. Keller37:39

   I, I see. Thank you. And I, I also think this is a really important problem. Uh, I submitted to, to EY a a a interim study item to study how do we cure, what's the best way to cure signatures and, and solve this problem. I'm not sure if this is the, the best way. It's not your worst idea. I'll take that as a win. Okay. So, thank you.

7. Committee chair (presiding)38:05

   Thank you, representative Keller. Good question, Representative Hayes.

8. Rep. Sandra Hollins38:09speaker not certain

   Thank you, Mr. Chair. Okay. So given everything you said, what are your hopes and dreams for this bill at the moment? Is your, are your goals interim study are, what, what would you like

9. Rep. Andrew Stoddard38:19

   To happen? Yeah, um, I would love this as an interim study item, but it sounds like the good representative from Lagoon has already submitted it. Um, but, but I think it's something we need to talk about and something where we can sit down and work with the clerks and work with our elections office and see what we can do to, to make sure that people who are trying to get involved actually can be involved. Uh, because I think it's, it's disheartening when you sign something, you try to, you know, play a part in your community and then it doesn't count. And we should be letting these people know and letting them, giving the, um, opportunity to fix it.

10. Unknown speaker38:55speaker not certain

    Thank you. And I, I just, I, I would support what, um, the good representative from LA recommended about interim study. It seems like that's a, a good option. So because I, I do agree with the sponsor that this is something that is important that we should be studying. And so let's, let's get it on the agenda, make sure we do it right. Okay. Thank

11. Committee chair (presiding)39:13

    You. Alright, thank you, uh, Representative MacPherson.

12. Rep. Matt MacPherson39:17

    Thank you, Mr. Chair. I also agree this is a good, um, idea. Um, though I'm curious, when I look at the fiscal note, it looks like they didn't say anything about not being able to do this. And I'm just curious, uh, this has an ongoing cost of $205,000, um, but I'm not seeing any, any millions of dollars in, in creating new technologies or processes. I'm just curious if, if you can explain why the fiscal note is the way it is on this, This may come as a surprise, but eight sessions in fiscal notes are still a mystery to me. And, uh, no, I, you know, I am not a fan of unfunded mandates and, um, and that this bill as is, that's what it would be. I mean, you can ask any of the, the trinity of clerks here. And, um, so I, I think it's important. I, I don't know what the actual cost would be or how they came up with this cost, but I would like to work to see what we can do to get this process going. Because If we're talking about 200,000 a year to, to solve this problem, that doesn't sound like that big of a deal. I mean, especially with some of the money we spend to solve non problems.

13. Unknown speaker40:33speaker not certain

    I agree.

14. Committee chair (presiding)40:35

    I won't Well, everybody has an opinion representative. Alright. Um, very good. Uh, I think we are done with our questions here. So we'll turn this over to the public for a comment. Anybody want to comment on this bill? Okay. Come on up ma'am. And representative, I'm assuming you're done. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, yeah. Alright.

15. Maryann Christensen, Utah Legislative Watch41:04

    Mary Ann Christensen, executive Director of Utah Legislative Watch. I wanna be on the record of supporting Representative Stoddard's bill. Wow. I think hearing is a really great idea and I think it should, um, be applied to nomination petitions as well. Um, I think that there's a lot of mistrust in the public that when they sign one of these petitions that their signature's not gonna get thrown out for whatever reason. So I think the public really supports this idea as well. Now being who I am and looking at a bill and saying these, these are the intended consequences. What would the unintended consequences be? Realizing that, um, we might not have a way to implement it right now, realizing that if we go to electronic signatures, we're, and I don't know how I feel about electronic signatures yet, but if we go there, we won't need to do this probably. But trying to think of unintended consequences and people who are looking at signatures and knowing that they have, they will trigger a, a cure process if they don't let this signature through. I'm just wondering if the unintended consequence might be that they let more signatures go through so that they don't trigger a, a cure process. So those are just my thoughts that I wanted to share. And I appreciate Representative Stoddard because I think the public needs to feel confident that when they sign their signature gets counted. So thank you very much.

16. Committee chair (presiding)42:40

    Alright. Thank you Marilyn. Um, anybody else in the audience? Oh, you have a question for, well, I just wonder if we could, well, we have a clerk coming up, so let's let him testify and then we will ask you a question, Brian, or two, we draw straws and lose.

17. Brian McKenzie, Davis County Clerk42:59

    Uh, thank you Mr. Chair. Brian Mackenzie, Davis County Clerk. Um, happy to answer some questions, but, uh, did, did want to address the underlying concept of this bill. Uh, we are generally in support of, of this idea of having some sort of a resolution for, uh, for those people who sign a petition and then their signature does not count. Uh, a curing process may not be the most effective way, um, but possibly as an alternative, uh, simply allowing the person to sign the petition again, may be the easiest solution. Uh, we would love to work with a sponsor or others, uh, and or others, um, to figure out a great solution for this to address this issue. To answer the question to the, towards the fiscal note, because of the timing of this bill and the wrapping up of candidate nomination packets and Prop four, um, and the implementation of our new voter registration system coming January of 2027, uh, there, there's minimal impact fiscally on, on trying to figure out the programming for this. We believe the timing would take care of that. So the fiscal note reflects just the process of handling these, uh, these cures that potentially could come through. Happy to answer any other questions the committee may have.

18. Committee chair (presiding)44:04

    All right. Thank you. Uh, Brian, go ahead. Representative Keller.

19. Rep. Keller44:07

    Uh, I, I, thank you, Mr. Chair. I think my question to the clerks is, is this something that's simple enough that we could fix and come up with a solution? Or is it better to send this to interim and all work together and come up with a better long term solution to the clerks? Have a preference on that? Uh,

20. Brian McKenzie, Davis County Clerk44:24

    I'll speak for myself on that question if that's all right. Uh, it's always better if we have a good idea and we've had time to weigh all the pros and cons of the solution before we put the solution in place.

21. Rep. Keller44:36speaker not certain

    Thank you. Sounds like he agrees it's not the worst idea that Andrew, that, uh, Stein said.

22. Committee chair (presiding)44:41

    Very good. Thank you. Uh, everyone, anyone else in the audience who wants speaks to this bill? Alright. Seeing none will go online. Yeah. We'll, we'll, Seth Stewart, go ahead and Seth, uh, turn on your camera. Tell us, uh, what city you're in and you'll have, uh, one minute and 30 seconds.

23. Seth Stewart, American Fork resident45:03

    All right. Thank you very much for the opportunity to speak. I'm Seth Stewart, I'm from American Fork, and, um, I've actually been in the space of data augmentation for handwritten texts, especially cursive for the past 10 years, professionally. So I have a lot of exposure to the concepts involved in handwritten language and so on. Uh, but I'm gonna echo a concern that's been expressed previously by some of the county clerks and, and that is that signature verification is inherently, um, vulnerable to exploitation, especially in the age of deep fakes. There are a number of online signature generators that you can use. And, uh, my concern here is that this, uh, by having a cure process for the signatures, or by just doing signature gathering in the first place as though that were an adequate standin for a person's identity, authentication for their identity, it's just, it's just no longer technologically adequate. And, uh, if it ever was really, um, and I, I think at its core, this issue is exposing a, a structural bifurcation of power. The, the legislature, le legislature has, um, has had to deal with ever since the initiative and referendum and the nominating petition routes began to exist. Uh, this is the core conflict behind the Prop four controversy, is the fact that the legislature has bifurcated its authority and delegated some of that to the public. And then there's this crisis of authority of over who should prevail in the redistricting issue. So, um, I would submit that we ought to return just to the, uh, ordinary in-person valid and authenticated voting methods. This seems to have some serious tension with the, uh, anoth another bill in this session, which, uh, is trying to get us to return to in-person credentialing and voting. And, uh, yeah, Representative Stoddard, please don't gimme hope on SB 54. Um, I, I think we should, we should definitely repeal that and just restore real bicameralism to our state legislature by having different election methods for the, for the offices of representative and senator. And I think that's what would, uh, that's what we restore our representative power. So

24. Committee chair (presiding)47:06

    You Alright, thanks Seth. Your time's up. Appreciate your insights though, and thanks for joining us this morning. We'll close public comment and bring this back to the committee for, uh, further discussion or action. You can Make a motion to make it a study. We hold it. You can hold it. Yeah, you can gimme those. Yeah, you can, you can hold it and ask to make a study item if you'd like. And that's, so I'm gonna turn your mic on. Go ahead, representative.

25. Rep. Sandra Hollins47:42

    Thank you. Thank you for the, um, I dunno, fun interlude in our day. Um, I would like to motion that we hold this with the intent of adding it to our study item list.

26. Committee chair (presiding)47:55

    Alright, that's in order. Do you wanna speak to that? I think it's been spoken to. Okay. Any discussion to the motion from Representative Hayes? Okay. Thank you. Alright. Seeing, seeing none, um, we'll place the motion then. Um, and the motion is to hold this, uh, this particular bill, house bill 5 83

27. Rep. Andrew Stoddard48:18

    and to make it an interim study item. Can I Speak to it First? Uh,

28. Committee chair (presiding)48:21

    of course. Thank you. I was, I was going to come to you. Okay. And back to the maker of the motion, but Okay. I can tell you're nervous. So go ahead, sir. You were making me a little nervous. All right, go ahead.

29. Rep. Andrew Stoddard48:31

    Um, I, I do appreciate the time that this committee has given me this session. Um, I think the more people we involve in our elections, the better off they are. And I think the more people understand the process, they can feel confident in our elections and how we handle them. I love our clerks and the work that they do. I love our elections. I think we have the best run elections in the country, honestly. Um, I think this is a small step that we can do to make sure that people feel like they're heard and that they matter. And it sounds like we can sit down with the clerks and figure something out over our interim and bring something back. And so I'd ask for your support on that.

30. Committee chair (presiding)49:10

    Alright. Thank you. To make a motion, I will Waive. Alright. Alright. The motion of force is to hold this, uh, bill house. Bill 5 83, making an interim study item, uh, voice vote. All in favor of that motion, say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Alright. And for the record, uh, I think you look great on a billboard. Laughter. Thank you. All right, thank you. Just, just waiting for the job offer from Senator Mikel, so, Okay, very good. Don't, don't hold your breath on the weight.