Utah Supreme Court to hear arguments Friday in 2nd District GOP primary dispute

SALT LAKE CITY — The Utah Supreme Court has agreed to hear arguments Friday in a lawsuit brought against Beaver County by Colby Jenkins, a candidate who lost to Rep. Celeste Maloy in Utah’s 2nd Congressional District GOP primary.

He asked the Supreme Court to challenge the certification of his election against Maloy. The suit was filed against nine counties and Utah Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson.

The arguments were scheduled Thursday for the emergency hearing. In a letter to attorneys, the court said attorneys can ask for permission to argue remotely. Each side will have 20 minutes to present their arguments.

Jenkins contests that mail from some counties in Utah travels to Las Vegas to be processed. Because of that, he said citizens from multiple counties had their ballots postmarked after June 24, the due date for the election. He said this may be the case even though they may have sent the ballots multiple days before.

He is asking the Utah Supreme Court to count each mail-in ballot, even those with late postmarks.

In his legal filing, Jenkins said failure to count the valid ballots violates the Utah Constitution. He said voters in the 2nd Congressional District “will simply have their votes discarded” because they were not instructed they needed to mail their ballots early.

Jenkins explained the case was filed initially with the state Supreme Court because the issue stretches across nine Utah counties. He said filing in each county could bring differing results and delays when “time is of the essence in primary challenges.”

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