Senator proposes pilot of ‘smart’ ballot drop boxes that scan barcodes and capture images
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Summary
Sen. Cal Musselman asked the subcommittee to fund a small pilot—five camera-enabled drop boxes that scan ballot barcodes, timestamp and capture a front-facing photo—to give county clerks a new tool for tracing destroyed or mass-dropped ballots; he proposed a modest $75,000 pilot and left data-retention and procurement questions for clerks and staff.
Sen. Cal Musselman told the General Government Appropriations Subcommittee he wants to pilot ‘scan’ drop boxes that read ballot barcodes, capture a front-facing image when a ballot is deposited, and report the drop to county clerks in real time.
“It's a form of voter ID,” Musselman said, describing a system that would associate a ballot’s barcode with a time, place and an image of the person who deposited it. He proposed testing five boxes at about $15,000 each for a $75,000 pilot, with an additional per-box fee described in his presentation.
Musselman said the camera would be ADA-compliant, could capture front-and-back images of the ballot and integrate with an administrator dashboard showing live drops across a map of boxes. He suggested beta-testing in Weber and Davis counties and said local clerks would choose pilot locations and handle logistics such as power and placement.
Committee members asked practical and legal questions about procurement and data access. Chair Norm Thurston noted the usual procurement rules would apply; Musselman said he was not aware of competing vendors and that a standard procurement process would still be used. On data access, Musselman said the vendor and county clerks would have access to the images and that the software’s data policy called for the vendor to destroy images after a specified period.
Members also asked whether recorded images would be subject to public-records law; Musselman said that detail had not been resolved in the committee conversation.
No funding decision was taken; the proposal was discussed as a possible pilot subject to procurement, data-retention policies and county clerk participation.