Now Utah waits.
While supporters of Utahns for Representative Government celebrate submitting what they said is “well over” the needed number of signatures to put a repeal of Proposition 4 on the ballot this fall, it will be weeks before the official tally is finished.
Republicans proposed the ballot initiative to undo Utah’s ban on partisan gerrymandering — an effort not unlike the very initiative it seeks to upend that was approved by Utahns eight years ago. Then, in 2018, voters endorsed creating an independent commission to draw the state’s political boundaries.
But since the redistricting initiative’s narrow passage, it has been the focus of lawsuits and legislative action, as the Republican-led Legislature argues it’s lawmakers who should be drawing Utah’s electoral maps. The ballot initiative campaign is one of the latest attempts to end Proposition 4.
UFRG, along with Republican politicians, activists and influencers, worked for months collecting the endorsements needed from 8% of all registered voters, or 140,748 Utahns, to qualify for the midterm election. For the initiative to be successful, they also needed to reach that threshold in 26 of Utah’s 29 senate districts.
And while Friday’s tally reported by the lieutenant governor’s office showed the UFRG staring down a more than 50,000-signature deficit, supporters rallied over the weekend, delivering boxes of signature packets to county clerks ahead of Sunday’s 5 p.m. deadline.
Supporters have 30 days from the signing of the first signature in that packet to submit it to a county clerk, meaning packets submitted Sunday could include endorsement from as early as mid-January.
“Now is the time to trust Utahns,” Rob Axson, chair of the Utah Republican Party and the UFGR organizer, told The Salt Lake Tribune on Monday, adding that the confusion around Proposition 4 over the last several years will now be put to rest.
“That is what this effort is all about,” Axson said. “Let’s have respectful conversations over the next 8 months and then trust what Utahns decide when they vote in November.”
In the final moments before Sunday’s deadline, Axson said organizers had submitted “well over 200,000 signatures,” tens of thousands more than required.
But the counting continues, and the question of whether Utah voters will reconsider Proposition 4 this fall is far from decided.
What happens now?
County clerks across Utah, according to state law, have 21 days after receiving a signature packet to verify the endorsements in that packet and to submit the names of those voters to the lieutenant governor’s office, who will then post those names to a website.
After the name of a voter who signed the petition appears on the state’s website, that voter has 45 days to contact their county clerk to have their signature removed.
These factors — along with being a quantitative showing of support — are why signature-gatherers look to submit more than the required number of endorsements to county clerks.
Better Boundaries, which led the effort to support Proposition 4, has already begun a campaign to contact voters who signed this year’s UFGR petition, asking them to withdraw their support for the repeal.
In a letter to those voters, Better Boundaries tells signers their name appears on a petition to ”bring back gerrymandering.”
They also include a form — filled out with the voter’s information and a postage-paid envelope — that voters can submit to the clerk’s office to remove their name. A voter only needs to sign the form and drop it in the mail.
Better Boundaries Executive Director Elizabeth Rasmussen said Sunday that, “Regardless of the outcome, our organization remains committed to upholding the will of the voters and will take every appropriate step to ensure their decision is honored.”
The last day for Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson, Utah’s top elections official, to declare if UFGR’s signature-gathering effort was a success is April 29.