A federal judge on Friday denied a request by 2nd District candidate Colby Jenkins to postpone the final certification of election results from the Republican primary.
The candidate sought more time so ballots disqualified because of postal delays could be counted.
U.S. District Judge David Nuffer ruled from the bench that Jenkins had not met the high standard required for him to keep the July 22 election certification from going forward.
Jenkins, who currently trails incumbent U.S. Rep. Celeste Maloy by 214 votes, filed the lawsuit Thursday. He argued that voters in several southern Utah ZIP codes had mailed their ballots on the Sunday or Monday before the election, believing they would be postmarked before the Monday deadline.
But because the mail had to be shipped to Las Vegas to be postmarked, the process was delayed and the ballots were disqualified. All told, nearly 1,200 ballots were not counted in five counties because they were not postmarked in time.
Election officials knew about the delays, the suit argues, but did nothing to inform voters that they would need to put their ballots in the mailbox early or risk not having their votes count.
Jenkins Lawsuit by Robert Gehrke on Scribd
Jenkins’ attorneys maintained that, under the U.S. Constitution’s equal protection clause, voters in those areas are entitled to the same right to have their ballots counted as those in other parts of the district.
Nuffer was not convinced, seeing a distinction between two previous court rulings — in which ballots were ordered to be counted — and the current set of facts because both of those cases took place during the COVID-19 pandemic and voters had no other way to vote. In this election, voters could have cast ballots in person or put them in a drop box.
Voters, he said, need to ensure their ballot is cast before the deadlines.
In a statement Friday, Maloy said that voting “is fundamental to our democratic republic and every Utah voter deserves to trust in the integrity of our elections.”
“Our county clerks and their respective staffs do remarkable work,” she said. “I have a high level of confidence in the process and believe it will show their figures accurately determined the outcome in a close race.”
Jenkins’ campaign did not immediately comment on Friday’s decision.
Before Washington County finalized its vote tally, Jenkins had sued in state court asking a judge to order the county to provide the Jenkins campaign with the list of uncured ballots so it could contact voters to fix the errors. The judge rejected the request, ruling the law gives county clerks the discretion as to whether to release that information.
According to the lawsuit, Beaver, Iron, Kane, Washington and Wayne counties have a total of 1,171 ballots that were not counted because they were postmarked after the June 24 deadline. Because portions of some of the counties ship their mail to Las Vegas for processing — those with ZIP codes starting with 847 — it is unclear how many would have actually been impacted by the delay.
However, Washington County, which is entirely in the 847 area, had 662 ballots that were not counted due to a late postmark. Jenkins carried that county 59% to 41%, meaning if all of the ballots had been counted and the same margin held, it could have reversed the outcome of the election.
Unlike a lawsuit filed by a gubernatorial candidate, state Rep. Phil Lyman, alleging that Gov. Spencer Cox should not have been allowed on the ballot, Jenkins’ lawsuit doesn’t directly assert malfeasance or seek to have Maloy disqualified from the election — although it does say that state officials should have known about the delays in mail-in voting and should have notified voters earlier.the delays in mail-in voting and should have notified voters earlier.