A Lehi City Council candidate sent out mailers that broke a state disclosure law — a violation that Utah’s elections office says is “fairly common.”
Candidate Emily Lockhart said Friday that an earlier version of the mailer, which did not include a mention of who paid for it and whether the candidate authorized it, was mistakenly printed and mailed out.
“As soon as my team and I discovered the error, we reported it to the lieutenant governor’s office,” Lockhart said in a statement to The Salt Lake Tribune. “I value transparency in elections, and when this issue came up, I did everything I could to make this right.”
Lehi’s primary election is Tuesday. Lockhart, who currently serves as a city planning commissioner, is one of 10 candidates running for two open City Council seats.
Madilyn Topik, legal and policy analyst with the lieutenant governor’s office, said that kind of oversight is “a fairly common mistake — so much so that we have a standard procedure to notify candidates when this happens.”
Topik added, “It’s important for candidates to make sure they’re aware of disclosure laws, which the Legislature frequently changes.”
The law governing disclosures on mailers was last updated in 2022.
Lockhart’s violation is not the first of its kind in this year’s election cycle. Topik’s office sent a notice last month to Tawnee McCay, a Riverton City Council member running for mayor there, after one of her mailers failed to include information about who paid for it and whether it was authorized by her.