One of the reasons I have always liked Representative Rebecca Chavez-Houck (D – Salt Lake, District 24), is that she has always fought to expand the rights of voters in Utah.  She has been a strong advocate for modernizing our democracy while still holding true to is roots.

I point to HB 119, Study of Signing Petitions Online as a prime example of this.

As you might of guessed, the bill would require the Lieutenant Governor (the executive branch official in charge of elections in Utah) to study the possibility of  allowing petitions to be signed electronically.

The bill stems from the 2009 Fair Boundaries and Utahns for Ethical Government’s separate, but valiant, attempts to ensure they had enough signatures to place their respective initiatives on the ballot. As you may have guessed, they both failed as you probably have not seen any independent panels discussing district boundaries or unethical behavior.

One main reason both electronic petitions failed was due to the fact that the laws simply have not kept up with modern times – even though electronic petitions, an many ways, made it harder to commit fraud by signing false names.

Houck is attempting to catch our legal system up with this little portion of our democracy – and rightly so. Utah could be a leader in citizen participation with the passage of a bill such as this, and I strongly encourage the legislature to at least allow the Lt. Governor to see if it is a viable solution to creating a modern democracy.

To contact Rep. Chavez-Houck, Click Here or call 801-891-9292

Impact: 3

Need: 4

Overall: 3

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To view other bills in the 2012 Bills to Watch series, Click Here