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Maloy Battle
The Utah GOP State Convention was held on Saturday, April 27, at the Salt Palace in Salt Lake City. Colby Jenkins and Celeste Maloy ran for Congressional District 2, a seat that Maloy had won in a special convention and election in 2023 when Chris Stewart resigned from the seat.
(Image by TwoTwoFourSix; source: Wikipedia.org)
Colby Jenkins won 56.85% of the delegate vote at the Utah GOP State Convention (ABC4), just over 3 points short of winning the nomination outright. He and Celeste Maloy thus went into the primary election, which was held on June 25.
The race was close the entire time.
June 27th:
June 28th:
As ballots continued to come in, the gap continued to narrow.
When the race is sufficiently close, a recount is automatically triggered.
July 3:
Here were the results of the primary about July 3:
July 5:
Even though it is required by law for clerks to release cure lists to campaigns, Colby Jenkins had to sue Washington County clerk Ryan Sullivan for that list. Judge Jay T. Winward of the Fifth District Court (Beaver, Iron, Washington Counties) ultimately decided that clerks should use their "own discretion" for releasing cure lists and rejected Jenkins's request for cure lists.
At the time (summer 2024), 20A-3-401(12) stated:
If, in response to a request, and in accordance with the requirements of law, an election officer discloses the name or address of voters whose ballots have been rejected and not yet resolved, the election officer shall: (a) make the disclosure within two business days after the day on which the request is made; (b) respond to each request in the order the requests were made; and (c) make each disclosure in a manner, and within a period of time, that does not reflect favoritism to one requestor over another.
Tracie Halvorsen, a Utah citizen and legal aid, weighed in on the decision to let clerks "use discretion:" She references HB37, which allows for cure lists to be disclosed upon request.
The legislative hearing on HB37 when it was being considered for law:
It wasn't just not getting access to cure lists. The Jenkins campaign had been hearing from voters in southern Utah that their ballots were delivered late - too late to be legally counted. Candidate Colby Jenkins reported on this regularly.
Not only were ballots returned too late, but cure letters sent by election clerks to voters whose ballots needed to be cured arrived too late for the voter to have time to cure his ballot.
Apparently, southern Utah ballot mail is routed to Las Vegas for processing, then it comes back to Utah. This does not work if an election deadline must be met.
More mail-in ballots were disqualified in Washington County than the number of Washington County voters who cast in-person ballots.
Colby Jenkins noted this on X, and mentioned that the state legislature was aware of these US mail problems but failed to act during the spring session by mandating that this information be provided to the pertinent voters for the primary.
Even the Salt Lake Tribune said this needed to be fixed.
July 11:
The state legislature discussing the problem during the spring 2024 General Session.
Not only did the state legislature understand what would happen, but one attempt to do something about it was killed. In the 2024 Spring General Session, Rep. Norman Thurston attempted to prevent what happened by introducing HB214, which specified that a ballot must be received by a clerk before polls close on election day - compelling by-mail voters to return their ballot sooner. This could be done by drop box or by voting in person, if necessary. HB214 did not pass, though subsequent changes to Utah election code since this primary fiasco did put this provision in place.
July 20:
Paul Cozzens, Iron County Commissioner, noted that some 415 Iron County ballots were postmarked too late to be counted, and also that cure letters arrived too late for the voters to cure their ballots. Like the ballots, the cure letters went through the Las Vegas route.
US Senator Mike Lee noted some 1300 mail ballots were disqualified, possibly changing the election outcome.
STILL IN PROGRESS...
