Are you reading the news about an effort by Utah Republicans to repeal Proposition 4, the state’s ban on gerrymandering, but still have some questions?
You’re not alone. I’m now Statewatch editor for The Salt Lake Tribune and honestly, I was pretty confused by the whole back and forth when I first started covering Utah politics in 2021.
So at 1 p.m. Tuesday, Robert Gehrke and I will host a YouTube livestream to answer your questions about Prop 4, the repeal effort and the long history of the anti-gerrymandering effort in Utah.
Have Republicans gathered enough signatures to ask Utahns to repeal Prop 4? Why did they have to collect signatures in the first place? When will the counting stop? What’s gerrymandering?
We’ll try to answer all of these and more.
Join us at The Salt Lake Tribune’s YouTube channel.
And feel free to add your questions in the comments to this story. We’ll answer as many as we can during the livestream.
The repeal effort so far
As of Monday morning, the GOP-backed Utahns for Representative Government had collected 123,449 verified signatures, according to the latest tally from the lieutenant governor’s office. That meant they needed 17,299 more to reach the 140,748 threshold to qualify for the November ballot.
At this rate, they could hit more than 140,000 signatures in the next couple of days.
Additionally, UFRG has met its mark in six of Utah’s 29 state senate districts and is close in three more. But to qualify for the ballot, they’ll need to reach at least 8% of registered voters in 26 of those senate districts.
Opponents of the repeal effort also have 45 days to convince those who signed the petitions to withdraw their names. So far, 2,741 names have been removed.