23-05-2025
Illegitimate election claims fly as legislative meeting mulls changes to Utah's signature verification
SALT LAKE CITY () — A meeting of the Utah legislature's Rules Review and General Oversight Committee rehashed allegations related to the 2024 Primary Election Thursday where supporters of Phil Lyman, who lost to Governor Spencer Cox, repeated claims that Cox did not gather enough signatures, that the Cox campaign 'induced' candidates to run against Lyman, there was election interference by the media, and malfeasance by the Davis County Clerk and the Lt. Governor's office in verifying those signatures.
The conversation was largely dominated by the committee's chair, Sen. Dan McCay (R-Riverton), Davis County Clerk Brian McKenzie, and the Lt. Governor's Director of Elections Ryan Cowley, who McCay pushed to consider several changes to signature verifying processes to avoid future issues.
'I feel like we have let the public down on this issue. I feel like it leaves this asterisk [around the election,]' McCay said.
After reviewing the , (which found there were some errors in verifying signatures, but that Cox still qualified), McCay gave floor time to Lyman's running mate Natalie Clawson and a citizen named Michael Clara recruited by Lyman to help with public records requests. Clawson and Clara presented what they claimed was evidence of 'missing signatures' and evidence that the Lt. Governor and McKenzie tried to cover their tracks.
Clara is basing his theory on the fact that there were signature packets identified by Davis County as irregular and sent off to be investigated. As per policy, the office sends those signatures to the Lieutenant Governor's office, which has the authority to ask for the signatures to be investigated by the Attorney General's office. Those signatures were investigated, and over those irregular packets.
Clara argued that the signatures should have been sent to the Attorney General directly, not to the Lieutenant Governor — who was a candidate on the ballot at the time.
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'In my estimation, what I can see through GRAMA request, we're probably missing 2,000 signatures for Governor Cox that are unaccounted for,' Clara said, but he did not show the GRAMA request that told him that.
He further alleged, without showing any evidence, that the LG's office then gave those flagged packets back to the Davis County Clerk once they realized Cox may be short on his signatures.
McKenzie was emphatic that did not happen.
'Flagged petitions that were considered for fraud investigation were never delivered to the LG's office and then returned to my office,' McKenzie said. 'I don't know where that data comes from. It's false.'
Clawson made allegations that the Lieutenant Governor didn't fully recuse herself during the election because there was only one text message returned by GRAMA request between Greg Bell, who was the independent election officer tasked with the job, and LG Deidre Henderson during the cycle.
She further claimed that nomination packets were hidden from Clara and their campaign when others were given access, that there was election interference by the media, and rehashed allegations that someone in the Cox campaign 'enticed' fellow write-in candidates Richard and Carol Lyman to run against Phil Lyman.
Further, she questioned the results of the Primary and called for a 'special election,' claiming they weren't allowed to view sensitive election returns called Cast Vote Records. Courts have protected those records in Utah because they can be used to triangulate how someone voted.
She also claimed that election staff in Davis County didn't take required signature verification training and that 'conveniently placed' holes in the ballot envelopes showed whether people were writing Lyman.
'I appreciate the scope of the legislative audit [of the nominating signatures], I think it would be appropriate to expand it to the primary elections because of all this interference that we saw,' Clawson said before saying the 'only fair outcome' would be a special election if the committee finds what Clawson purports to have found.
McKenzie shot down all of her claims.
'Cast Vote Record, the board of canvassers can access that data,' he said.
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As for the holes in the envelopes, McKenzie explained it gives clerks a quick and easy way to look through a stack and see if they've separated the ballot from the envelope.
'The placement of that hole varies depending on the vendor and some regulations with the Postal Service,' McKenzie said. 'There was no preplanning or placement of that hole.'
Finally, McKenzie explained that every member of his staff did do a required signature verification training but that some workers took a 2023 training and were verifying signatures before a new version of 2024 training was required.
The meeting wrapped without any action taken by the committee, but rather a lengthy discussion where McCay aired several of his questions and grievances for McKenzie and Cowley about how they would smooth over these issues.
The following are some of the considerations:
Candidates submitting packets in real time instead of having all the signatures verified at once — allowing candidates time to figure out whether they need to gather more.
Oversubmitting packets — allowing candidates to submit more signatures than they need, and not having clerks stop verifying once a candidate has reached the required threshold.
Adding signature gathering licensing and required training for signature gathering employees
How to handle perceived conflicts of interest
Blind verification of signature packets so gatherers don't know who they're collecting for
Having vendors move the holes on ballot envelopes so as not to reveal any information
Decentralizing signature reviews so counties are validating packets instead of the LG's office.
Transparency — how to make Cast Vote Records tailored so no one can triangulate how someone voted, but results can be checked.
Making cure lists public
McCay also chastised McKenzie and Cowley over their handling of the 'enticement' allegation in the Phil Lyman race.
'I tend to believe that someone was being it stopped being cute after one candidate had to spend a bunch more money (to fix his political signs),' McCay said.
'There's enough smoke here,' McCay said, pushing the pair about their investigation process.
'We did have those conversations internally,' Cowley said, arguing that the allegation was given to the right authorities and pointing out that Lyman also sued the other two Lymans, which could be seen as trying to force them out of the race.
'I feel terribly that our processes have let us down,' McCay said.
Illegitimate election claims fly as legislative meeting mulls changes to Utah's signature verification
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