Over the course of a few hours on a chilly Tuesday night in March, tens of thousands of Utah Republicans were stuck in long lines, many facing delays to cast their vote for Donald Trump or Nikki Haley due to technical difficulties.
Ultimately, less than one in 10 registered Republicans in the state had a say in who Utah GOP delegates would nominate for president. Trump beat Haley in Utah 56% to 43%.
In the nearly six months since the party’s disorderly Super Tuesday presidential preference poll, there has been limited public analysis as to what went wrong. And a legislative hearing dissecting the caucus night problems scheduled for last week was canceled at the behest of GOP leaders, sources told The Salt Lake Tribune.
The supermajority Republican Utah Legislature’s Government Operations Interim Committee, according to an agenda posted Friday, Aug. 16, was slated to hear a presentation on Aug. 21 that included over 1,700 negative comments from GOP voters about the preference poll. A representative from the Disability Law Center would also discuss a long list of barriers disabled voters faced while trying to participate.
When the meeting came around that Wednesday afternoon, co-Chair Sen. Daniel Thatcher, a Republican from West Valley City, stood up and said, “While we would like to discuss this today, because of all the other issues that are coming up today, and how busy this special session day is going to be, we’re going to push that until next month’s committee.”
Utah Republican Party Chair Robert Axson, who was sitting in the front row of the room with other party leaders, immediately stood up and left.
Thatcher told The Tribune after the meeting that legislative leadership had asked the committee to take the item off the agenda, but, when pressed as to why, he declined to comment further.
His co-chair, West Haven Republican Rep. Calvin Musselman, referred messages from The Tribune to a House spokesperson, who said the representative wasn’t available and they did not have information on the committee’s agendas.
When asked whether House Speaker Mike Schultz was available for an interview about the agenda item, a spokesperson responded, “The Government Ops chairs set the committee agenda and decided to remove this item. The decision of whether [or] not to hear it in the future will be a decision made by the chairs. That being said, the speaker will not be commenting on this topic.”
“We’re grateful that it did not happen because I think it was prepared in a way that was anything but comprehensive and fair,” Axson told The Tribune. He said he had spoken to multiple lawmakers, including some Democrats, who agreed with him.
“Legislators on both sides of the aisle were very collaborative with me and with the party, and care about conversations happening, but care about them happening in a fair, transparent and honest way,” Axson said.
The Utah Republican Party was not listed on the agenda as a presenter in Wednesday’s meeting. In texts shared with The Tribune, in which Utah County Republican Party Chair Cristy Henshaw urged him to cancel the discussion, Thatcher said he wouldn’t amend the agenda, but would allow the party as much time as possible to respond to the presentations during public comment.
“Respectfully, this seems very much out of the legislature’s lane: this jurisdiction resides with the Parties and their members,” Henshaw texted.
Thatcher disagrees — he believes the Legislature needs to step in when there are problems related to choosing a presidential candidate because under Article I Section 17 of the Utah Constitution, “no power, civil or military, shall at any time interfere to prevent the free exercise of the right of suffrage.”
“I believe that they would have had a very friendly committee,” Thatcher told The Tribune, adding, “but I also believe that we have a responsibility and an obligation to assess whether there are inappropriate barriers to participation.”
On Friday, after this story first published, Henshaw told The Tribune she applauded the committee chairs for pulling the discussion, if, she said, Thatcher recognized he had a “potential conflict of interest” because a family member of his ran a group that previously tried to get an initiative on the ballot that would replace partisan primaries.
”We appreciate all elected officials who respect conflicts of interest boundaries to ameliorate public doubt of ethical impropriety,” Henshaw texted. “We hope all public officials prohibit special access to committees and processes. The Capitol is the people’s house and shouldn’t be accessible only to people who know people. The Party has and will continue to solicit feedback on Caucus Night and any other events we run as we strive to make processes better for all of our members.”
A week after the presidential preference poll was held in caucus meetings, the party announced it had counted a total of 85,797 ballots, for a 9.6% turnout. That amounts to just under a quarter of the nearly 345,000 Republican ballots cast in the 2020 primary election, overseen by the lieutenant governor’s office.
(Bethany Baker | The Salt Lake Tribune) An official looks at a precinct map with a caucusgoer ahead of the presidential primary caucuses at Riverton High School in Riverton on Tuesday, March 5, 2024.
What lawmakers were kept from hearing
On the night of the presidential preference poll, Republican voters were vocal about their dissatisfaction. Several months earlier, the state party decided to forego a presidential primary in favor of a poll at local caucus meetings.
“This is the stupidest thing I’ve ever been in,” Evelyn Ames, a caucus-goer in Riverton, told The Tribune in March. “It’s a pure waste of my time. … If it were a regular primary, I could send my ballot anytime.”
That evening, Axson told reporters that part of the problem was that some precincts were “overwhelmed” with the number of people who came out to vote. There were also a number of volunteers who didn’t show up, Axson added, and a lack of help and information in those precincts caused the situation to get “out of control.”
Daryl Acumen, a data analyst and the former vice chair of the Utah County Republican Party, said he sent over half a million texts and emails soliciting feedback in the weeks after Super Tuesday.
Republican party bosses were wary of the presentation, in part, because Acumen has on numerous occasions publicly disagreed with them — especially when it comes to the state’s caucus-convention system. A slideshow meant to accompany his presentation contends, “The caucus system is physically designed to minimize participation.”
In the 410,356 texts Acumen sent, he asked recipients to rate their presidential preference poll experience on a scale of 1 to 5 — with 1 representing “angry” and 5 meaning “enthusiast.” He noted that they could reply with specific feedback.
Nearly 60% of the more than 10,000 responses he received said “1.” Approximately 260 others said “zero” or “minus-one,” according to his presentation.
Acumen sat in Wednesday’s hearing holding a thick, spiral-bound booklet of the comments voters sent in response to the messages, which were also sent to GOP leaders’ inboxes. Dozens of those comments were quoted in the presentation he was to share with lawmakers.
“During this process, while choosing our local representatives I WITNESSED TWO PEOPLE LEAVE because it was so late! One person [who left] was a school teacher I know, she was grading papers while attending. She wakes at 5am for work and had to leave to get sleep and prepare for the next day,” one message said.
Another said, “My husband had to be rushed from his root canal to vote … we barely made it. There was little to no advertising outside of the Republican inner circle as to where people needed to vote and how to check their voter status.”
Other commenters made allegations about the security of the polls and how votes were counted. Precinct secretaries, according to the Acumen’s presentation, said voter lists were inaccurate, and others had concerns about how the small slips of paper they cast their votes on were handled.
(Bethany Baker | The Salt Lake Tribune) A caucusgoer holds up a ballot during the presidential primary caucuses at Riverton High School in Riverton on Tuesday, March 5, 2024.
“We should always expect to improve, and there are always lessons for better practices,” Axson said, adding he’s willing to have conversations about that in public or private. When asked what the best way would be for lawmakers to raise their concerns, Axson replied, “They all have my number.”
Axson suggested similar scrutiny should be applied to the Democratic Party’s presidential primary, overseen by the lieutenant governor’s office — in which 68,601 ballots were cast for nearly 30% turnout — because delegates later cast their votes for Vice President Kamala Harris after President Joe Biden announced last month he would no longer seek reeleciton.
Then-incumbent President Biden received 87% of Utah votes in March.
After he collected the more than 10,000 responses, Acumen compiled and delivered them to the state’s top elected officials. He told The Tribune that he did not receive a response.
The Utah Democratic Party, after this story first published, accused the GOP of trying to avoid accountability, and said, “the Republican Supermajority is happy to oblige.”
“These are the tactics of crooked politicians, and they have no place in our state,” Democratic Party Executive Director Thom DeSirant said in a statement. “Utahns deserve a transparent government, and they deserve answers.”
Thatcher said he plans to have a discussion about the presidential preference poll in the next Government Operations Interim Committee meeting in September.
“I believe this is a critically important issue that needs to be addressed,” Thatcher told The Tribune. “We need to know whether or not we met our constitutional obligation to hold a free and fair election. We need to know whether or not civil liberties were respected.”
Update, Aug. 30, 5 p.m. • This story has been updated to include a statement from the Utah Democratic Party a comment from Utah County Republican Party Chair Cristy Henshaw.
