Celeste Maloy wins 2nd Congressional District GOP Primary recount despite Washington, Tooele issues

SALT LAKE CITY — A recount in the race for the GOP nomination in Utah’s 2nd Congressional District has ended with no change – Celeste Maloy has beaten Colby Jenkins.

The race’s final recount tally showed Maloy ended ahead of Jenkins by 176 votes.

The tally from the initial June 25 GOP Primary election was 214 votes — the difference largely coming from votes that weren’t counted in initial tallies known as adjudicated ballots.

RECOUNT NUMBERS are in and @CelesteMaloyUT has beat @ColbyforUtah by 176 votes. That means the recount ultimately netted Jenkins 38 votes. @KSL5TV #utpol pic.twitter.com/Y1SUB51J52

— Lindsay Aerts (@LindsayOnAir) August 5, 2024

Those are ballots that can’t be read by tabulating machines, usually because a bubble for a race isn’t filled in correctly. Two bubbles filled in in the same race are called over-votes. Those ballots are then examined to determine the voter’s intent.

Those new votes are then added back into overall tallies. The issue came when the software gave an error message and wouldn’t add in the new totals.

“In our software, you do have to, once you’re done, once the team is done making those changes, hit the ‘commit results’ button. That was giving them an error,” said Utah’s Deputy Director of Elections Shelly Jackson.

Tooele was the first county to find that 55 adjudicated ballots hadn’t been counted in initial results, results show Washington County had 28.

Over the weekend, state elections Jackson rushed to Washington County to help oversee their recount. The county postponed its canvass until Monday to double-check all their adjudicated ballots.

“Basically (I) just went through their process again and they had no issues on Saturday,” she said.

All 13 counties in the 2nd Congressional District GOP race report recount numbers

Jackson said Utahans can have confidence in the results because officials were able to check the number of adjudicated ballots against what the machines were telling them.

“I’m not sure that we have actually gotten rid of the error yet, but we know that we have adjudicated all of the ballots and saved them without getting that error and then gone back, taken a second look and, you know, gone through those ballots to make sure they were still committed and that the results had changed,” she said.

Jackson said no other CD2 counties reported getting any error messages. She did say, however, that the state elections office would be looking at all the other races with adjudicated ballots in the June 25 Primary.

“None of them were close enough to have a recount. So we don’t think that any of the results will be affected in those other counties,” she said.

Maloy, Jenkins point to outstanding Utah Supreme Court challenge

However, the challenge to the primary results is not done. Jenkins has an outstanding legal challenge in front of Utah’s Supreme Court over ballots he said should be counted despite their late postmarks.

Both he and Maloy reference the next steps in their reaction to the recount results.

We are thankful for the tireless efforts of the clerks and their staff in conducting the recount.

In every step of this process, we have advanced bit-by-bit and the votes we’ve gained in this recount are one more example of that.

What was a race that was too-close-to-call is now even closer. We eagerly await a decision from the Utah Supreme Court to ensure that every legal vote is counted, and every voice is heard, Colby Jenkins said.

Maloy said she, too will be following the decision.

The county clerks and their staffs have done amazing work to count and recount the ballots. Their process has been thorough, transparent and their remarkable accuracy should inspire confidence in our election system. I thank them for their efforts.

I recognize that there is ongoing litigation and I am eager to get a decision from the courts. We will continue to monitor the situation closely. Meanwhile, I will continue to focus on advancing a conservative agenda for the people of Utah’s 2nd District, said Maloy.

JUST IN: @CelesteMaloyUT and @ColbyforUtah are both thanking election staff after the #CD2 recount Maloy has won.

And they both cite an ongoing lawsuit challenging the results sitting with the Utah Supreme Court.

1st picture is Maloy's statement, 2nd is Jenkins. @KSL5TV… pic.twitter.com/p5wOneUuDB

— Lindsay Aerts (@LindsayOnAir) August 5, 2024