Phil Lyman asks Utah’s top court to prevent printing of ballots until resolution in his case

SALT LAKE CITY — State Rep. Phil Lyman asked the Utah Supreme Court to prevent the printing of ballots for the November general election pending the outcome of an earlier case in which he asked the justices to kick Gov. Spencer Cox out of office and make Lyman the Republican nominee for governor.

The Blanding Republican has taken his case to the courts since losing the June 25 GOP primary to Cox by more than 37,000 votes. He said Sunday he would run for governor as a write-in candidate. Utah has a law that prevents candidates who have filed a declaration of candidacy from running as an unaffiliated candidate in the same year.

Lyman filed a lawsuit in Utah’s 3rd District Court just a week after the election asking a judge to force election officials to turn over a list of names of people who signed ballot access petitions for Cox. The campaign has cast doubt on the legitimacy of the signatures collected and said it would like to examine the lists.

Petition with Utah Supreme Court

Lyman filed a request for a preliminary injunction in that same case with the Supreme Court on Monday, asking the five justices to halt the printing of ballots for the November election until the Supreme Court issues a ruling, force Cox to veto any election-related bills passed by the Legislature while his case plays out, and prevent the Utah Republican Party from endorsing Cox for governor in November.

Like the Aug. 2 request, Lyman filed the petition to the top court on his own behalf, without an attorney signing on.

In a press release, he accused Henderson of committing a “third-degree felony and malfeasance in office for creating a counterfeit ballot.”

“It is our duty as elected officials that we have free and fair elections in Utah,” Lyman said in a statement. “We owe it to the public to ensure that elections are conducted lawfully and candidates are treated fairly. As Republicans, we also need to defend our party’s right to nominate candidates via our party’s constitution and bylaws, which state the winner of the convention is the GOP nominee for the general election.”

‘Strong-armed’

His court filing, obtained Monday by KSL.com, also claims he was “strong-armed” into competing in the primary election and should have been allowed to advance to the general election because he won 67.5% of the Republican delegate vote during the statewide nominating convention in April.

“Yet, in a move that makes political shenanigans look like a friendly game of checkers, the respondents have strong-armed petitioner Lyman onto the June 25, 2024, primary ballot, forcing petitioner Lyman to take another spin on the nomination merry-go-round,” the petition states. “Tossing aside the party constitution like an outdated rulebook and treated the convention nomination like a dress rehearsal that never happened — circumventing the indirect primary allowed by Utah elections law.”

Lyman has contested Utah’s election law that allows candidates to qualify for the primary ballot by winning during the party convention or by collecting enough signatures. Utah law states: “A qualified political party that nominates one or more candidates for an elective office” using the convention system “and has one or more candidates qualify as a candidate for that office” by gathering signatures, “shall participate in the primary election for that office.”