The Utah legislature has passed SB 27 and sent it to the Governor. It is an omnibus election law bill proposed by the State Elections office. It makes two minor improvements in ballot access law: (1) it deletes the requirement that independent presidential candidates must file their declaration of candidacy in person; (2) it sets an independent presidential petition deadline of August 15.

The 1994 session of the legislature had accidentally repealed the deadline for the independent presidential petition. This lead to confusion, because then most people read the election law to mean that the independent presidential petition deadline was in March, when independent candidates for other office are due. Even the Federal Election Commission was confused, and published a chart of independent presidential petition deadlines that said the Utah deadline was in March.

The repeal of the requirement that independent presidential candidates must file in person is partly due to Gloria La Riva, presidential candidate of the Party for Socialism and Liberation last year. She had complained about the requirement, and the State Elections office took her complaints to heart. No other state had ever had such a requirement.