Utah law stipulates that ballots begin to be mailed three weeks before Election Day. That means ballots start to hit the mail tomorrow. You can sign up for Utah’s official ballot tracker to make sure your ballot gets to you; reach out to your county election officials if you don’t receive it by the end of the week.
2026 is a really important election for Utah. Please vote and help your family, friends, and neighbors participate too.
Two ballot amendments
We recently published our view on Amendment B. In short: Amendment B will raise the threshold for citizen-led initiatives that impact revenue to 60%. In our view, this amendment uses vague language to make many ballot initiatives almost impossible to pass—undermining Utah citizens’ power to check our legislature.
Following on the heels of Amendment D (an attempt to override citizen ballot initiatives) two years ago, we see Amendment B as another attempt to consolidate power in the legislative branch. We’re opposed.
Amendment A is also about ballot initiatives, also features vague language, and we also recommend voting “no.”
Amendment A
Amendment A proposes a new way to advertise for ballot initiatives. Currently, any ballot initiative’s sponsors are required to advertise in newspapers throughout the state for 60 days prior to an election.
This rule seems primarily to make sure that information about the ballot measure remains accessible. Frankly, a requirement to publish it in newspapers for 60 days may indeed be outdated (and costly). So why are we opposed?
Amendment A changes the requirement for amendments, stipulating only that be advertised “in a manner provided by statute, for 60 calendar days.”
Unless a constitutional requirement, a statute can easily be written. The idea of Amendment A is decent; the actual language is opaque. And who writes the statutes? The state legislature.
Two types of initiatives
There are two types of initiatives that may appear on ballots in Utah:
Initiatives referred by the state legislature itself—the vast majority of the amendments that appear on your ballot, including both this year, are referred by the legislature. (Historically, over 87% of ballot amendments were referred by legislature)
Initiatives created by ordinary citizens. That’s only 28 total over 125 years; only a quarter have passed.
Amendment A is unclear on whether these two types of initiatives will be treated the same. Current state law requires the Lieutenant Governor to publish the full text of all proposed constitutional amendments and other ballot questions on the Utah Public Notice Website and on the Lieutenant Governor’s website for 60 days immediately before the general election.
While this change from newspaper to online seems acceptable right now, we’re nervous that if the way to advertise for amendments can be changed after the amendment passes, Utah’s legislative branch could theoretically impose relatively easy rules for itself and more difficult ones for citizen-led initiatives. We’ve seen double standards happen before (again, see Amendment B).
It’s worth noting that in 2024, the legislature failed to correctly advertise several amendments, leading to votes for Amendments A and D not being counted after a judge ruled they failed to meet the statutory requirements. And misleading language. (Must be trending).
What we would support
If Amendment A laid out a clear, consistent, Constitutionally-mandated process for both types of ballot initiatives, we would likely support this update.
Without that guarantee, it feels suspiciously like yet another chance for Utah leaders to write rules that favor themselves while blocking citizen initiatives.
As written, we’ll be voting “no.”
Everyone needs to read this message.