Utah Supreme Court to hear arguments Friday in 2nd District GOP primary dispute
Aug 8, 2024, 3:10 PM
Utah’s 2nd Congressional district debate between Colby Jenkins and Congresswoman Celeste Maloy at the KUED studios at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City on Monday, June 10, 2024.
SALT LAKE CITY — The Utah Supreme Court has agreed to hear arguments Friday in a lawsuit brought against Beaver County by Colby Jenkins, a candidate who lost to Rep. Celeste Maloy in Utah’s 2nd Congressional District GOP primary.
He asked the Supreme Court to challenge the certification of his election against Maloy in the suit filed against nine counties and Utah Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson.
The arguments were scheduled Thursday for the emergency hearing. In a letter to attorneys, the court said attorneys can ask for permission to argue remotely. Each side will have 20 minutes to present their arguments.
Jenkins contests that mail from some counties in Utah travels to Las Vegas to be processed, and that citizens from multiple counties had their ballots postmarked after the due date for the election, June 24, although they may have sent the ballots multiple days before.
He is asking the Utah Supreme Court to count each mail-in ballot, even those with late postmarks.
In his legal filing, Jenkins said failure to count the valid ballots violates the Utah Constitution. He said voters in the 2nd Congressional District “will simply have their votes discarded” because they were not instructed they needed to mail their ballots early.
Jenkins explained the case was filed initially with the Supreme Court because the issue stretches across nine Utah counties and filing in each could bring differing results and delays when “time is of the essence in primary challenges.”
Jenkins also filed a lawsuit in federal court last month making the same claims, but Judge David Nuffer ruled Jenkins did not provide sufficient evidence that rejected ballots had been mailed on time or that state officials showed disparate treatment of voters under state code.
Henderson responded, saying Jenkins is asking the 2nd District to “disregard clear statutory language” and count ballots that are not valid. She said the court should deny the petition with prejudice, and said Utah Code states it is the postmark date that matters not the date the ballot is mailed.
She said his “continued efforts” to bring “unfounded legal arguments” to change the result of the election interferes with efforts to prepare for the general election and “undermine(s) the public’s confidence in the election process.”
Multiple counties named in the lawsuit joined in Henderson’s response and others detailed how many ballots were postmarked after Election Day and said they had sent notices to those individuals to cure their ballots and they did not.
Jenkins asked for a recount, after results had Maloy winning by 214 votes.
On Monday afternoon, Henderson announced that Maloy had won and the recount did not change the election. The final tally on the state’s website shows Maloy with a 176-vote lead in the recount, 53,777 to 53,601.
Jenkins has also filed a lawsuit against Washington County Clerk/Auditor Ryan Sullivan in Utah’s 5th District Court, asking the county to turn over names and addresses for voters whose ballots need to be “cured.”
That lawsuit said the campaign wants to contact supporters on the list to encourage them to fix their ballots, letting them know about the close election. At the time, the county had 531 uncured ballots, which Jenkins called a “suspicious coincidence” in a county where he had almost 60% of the votes.
A hearing in that case is scheduled for Monday.
