After coming up short of qualifying for the 2026 ballot, a Republican-led bid to restore the Legislature’s power to gerrymander districts is in peril of missing the mark even further, after more than 10,000 Utahns have now removed their support for the effort.

In order to qualify for the ballot, Utahns for Representative Government needed to gather nearly 141,000 signatures statewide. But the support also must be spread around the state such that it met specific thresholds in 26 of Utah’s 29 state Senate districts.

At the deadline, the GOP-led UFRG submitted packets containing more than 200,000 signatures and proclaimed to have easily met the requirement. As of Thursday, they have still met the statewide goal.

But last week, the group slipped below the threshold in one required state Senate district and is teetering on the verge of losing a second, as nearly 300 more voters withdrew their support in Salt Lake County’s Senate District 12, held by Sen. Karen Kwan, leaving them 45 signatures over the goal, according to the latest update by the lieutenant governor’s office.

Losing a second district, while largely irrelevant now, would add insult to injury and mean the measure would have qualified in 24 districts. Voters have until April 23 to remove signatures.

Statewide, more than 10,000 Utahns have submitted the necessary form to their county clerks to withdraw support, a figure that opponents of the repeal contend proves voters felt tricked into signing petitions by allegedly deceptive tactics by UFRG’s paid signature gatherers.

The removals came despite a hasty effort by Republican legislators in the final hour of the 2026 session to make it harder for voters to remove their support. The law prohibited county clerks from processing removal forms received in envelopes with pre-paid postage.

UFRG’s effort to repeal Proposition 4 — a 2018 voter-approved ballot initiative that banned partisan gerrymandering — had the backing of President Donald Trump, Vice President J.D. Vance, U.S. Sen. Mike Lee, Gov. Spencer Cox, state legislative leaders and other political influencers, as well as more than $4 million from a Trump-affiliated group, but suffered a stinging defeat.

Republican legislators have discussed putting a constitutional amendment on the ballot that would give lawmakers the power to repeal or amend ballot initiatives, but did not do so during the 2026 election. They could convene a special session to put such a measure before voters.

Regardless of the next step, the congressional boundaries chosen by a judge to supplant the previous maps that were deemed to be illegally gerrymandered will be in place for the 2026 election. If the Utah Constitution is amended, lawmakers could redraw them for the 2028 campaigns.