Phil Lyman tells supporters at Capitol he will continue to challenge GOP primary
Write-in candidate for governor Phil Lyman spoke to more than 200 of his supporters at the steps of the Utah Capitol on Thursday where he said he will continue to challenge the results of this year's Republican primary, which he lost to Gov. Spencer Cox.
Lyman, a state lawmaker from Blanding, told the crowd they should pressure their state legislators to not support the certification of the Nov. 5 general election "unless we get these things resolved." Statewide elections are certified by the state board of canvassers, composed of the independently elected state auditor, state treasurer and attorney general.
Lyman repeated that he would not accept the results of the June 25 primary election or the upcoming general election until he had verified them himself. Lyman lost the GOP primary election to Cox by less than 9 percentage points winning the party's nomination at the GOP convention among state delegates by 35 percentage points.
Lyman subsequently filed to run for governor as a write-in candidate. His name does not appear on the ballots that county clerks began mailing out on Tuesday.
A poll released Tuesday by Noble Predictive Insights, a polling firm focused on Arizona, Nevada and Utah, found 49% support of likely Utah voters for Cox, 23% for his Democratic opponent, Rep. Brian King, D-Salt Lake City, 19% who were not sure and 5% who wrote in Lyman's name under "another candidate not listed."
Lyman challenges primary election
Lyman has filed several lawsuits questioning the state's 10-year-old signature route to the primary ballot and asking to see all 28,000 signatures gathered by Cox to qualify for the June primary. On Thursday, Lyman told reporters he would likely file additional lawsuits.
"This has gone way past Lyman," the candidate said about himself. "This is about transparency."
In recent months, Lyman has called for state election officials to interpret the state code to allow his campaign to view the signatures Cox submitted to the Lieutenant Governor's Office to qualify for the primary ballot.
Election officials have cited state privacy laws that prevent them from providing information for certain voters who chose to make their information private on candidate nomination petitions.
Since shortly before losing the primary election, Lyman suggested that Cox did not gather sufficient valid signatures to qualify for the ballot. On Thursday, Lyman said his claims were vindicated by a legislative auditors report released on Tuesday.
What did the legislative audit find?
The report found that a sample of 1,000 signatures from Cox's signature packets yielded an error rate of 2.4% for signatures that were incorrectly validated and an error rate of 1.9% for signatures that were incorrectly invalidated. If applied to the total number of signatures, the report estimated that 572 of Cox's initial batch of signatures were counted when they should not have been.
This estimated number of incorrectly validated signatures exceeds the 492 additional signatures Cox submitted that were not counted. Cox submitted his signatures 28 days before the deadline. Once the Davis County Clerk's Office, which conducts statewide campaign signature verification for the state, had verified 28,000 signatures, the Cox campaign was told not to submit additional signatures and were then certified to appear on the primary ballot.
During a Tuesday legislative audit subcommittee hearing, state auditors told lawmakers that Cox, as well as Republican candidate for U.S. Senate Rep. John Curtis and GOP attorney general candidate Derek Brown, had complied with the law and met the thresholds required under state law according to Davis County's signature verification process.
Auditors recommended several improvements to the process to decrease the subjectivity of the signature verification process, to increase the transparency of signatures for the public and to audit error rates of signature verification before ballots are finalized.
Lyman encourages supporters to show civility
While Cox would have had plenty of time to gather more signatures if the Davis County's Clerk's Office had been aware of the error rate, Lyman said the audit's findings should "disqualify" Cox from the general election because he did not submit sufficient valid signatures to qualify for the primary.
"It says Spencer Cox likely was 80 votes short, at least, based on their thing," Lyman said, thanking the auditors for their honest investigation and legislative leadership for releasing the results.
Lyman told the crowd his campaign has spent close to $100,000 litigating access to Cox's signature lists. After verifying Cox's signatures, Lyman said "the next hill to climb" is verifying the primary election itself, "which I don't believe we actually lost."
Despite his intentions to launch additional challenges to Cox's candidacy, Lyman told his supporters that the most likely outcome is that Cox will win in November, take office in January and serve for four years, but Lyman claimed he would do so as "an illegitimate governor."
Following his remarks, Lyman told reporters that if he had one message for those voting for him, it was that they should promote their support peacefully and communicate their dissatisfaction with the primary process respectfully.
"If I could ask him do anything, it would be to be civil about this, be professional about this, because we have the truth on our side," Lyman said.
