And then he waited. And waited. And waited.
Republican challenger Rick Ellsworth won by 20 votes, unseating the one-term incumbent. His cheap model for monitoring more than 100 prisoners with one sick guard set up a weeklong fugitive caper that embarrassed one state and terrorized two last fall. His mismanagement forced a change in state policy; Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. summarily yanked dangerous state prisoners from county jails, replacing them with lower-risk inmates.
Then, finally, 16 months later, Campbell got his answer:
Turns out 9 percent of the 600 Daggett County voters who put Ellsworth barely over the top were frauds. Fifty-one people registered and voted illegally in that 2006 race - 14 listed Ellsworth's parents' address and at least three share his last name. They face up to a year in jail and $2,500 fines.
But Ellsworth will continue in office. Investigators could not find any proof that he masterminded the scheme. No one knows who the carpetbaggers voted for. And the deadline for challenging the results passed a year ago. Ellsworth will finish out his four-year term, unscathed.
"I'm done with it," says Campbell. "I realize that nothing will come out of this that will change the election."
The people responsible for safeguarding Utah elections - Herbert and his staff - say there is nothing they can do. They're hamstrung by time and the limits of Utah law.
But the way they handled Campbell's original complaint makes me wonder if they didn't already do a favor for a fellow Republican.
Campbell remembers first calling Attorney General Mark Shurtleff's office that October, after a dramatic 200-voter increase in the Daggett County rolls. He was told to file a complaint with Herbert. And he says he did, notarizing his analysis of the county's questionable population growth and mailing it before the election. His complaint didn't make it back to the Attorney General's office until two months later - after Ellsworth had won and just weeks before the deadline for challenging
his victory.
Wednesday, Campbell declined to give me a copy. Every time a news story about the stacked election appears, his neighbors blame him for keeping the county's shame alive.
"It's his word against mine," says Herbert Chief of Staff and damage controller Joe Demma. "We get dozens of complaints every election. We're not the police. We are in charge of administering election law. The attorney general is in charge of enforcing the laws. We always immediately direct complaints to the attorney general."
As of Wednesday, Demma says, "I have not seen such a thing" as Campbell's written report.
Attorney general spokesman Paul Murphy says investigators in Shurtleff's office started work on the case as soon as they got it - in December 2006. It took another year to wrap up.
State Democratic Party Director Todd Taylor says the voters who illegally cast their ballots in Daggett County should serve time. And Ellsworth should step down and run again.
"If he were an honorable person, knowing full well that he gained the office illegally, he would step aside and run for re-election this year in a fair contest," Taylor says. "There is a way to make it right."
walsh@sltrib.com
