Utah GOP primary results up in the air as state Supreme Court agrees to hear challenge

The Utah Supreme Court will hear congressional candidate Colby Jenkins’s election case as the Republican bids to win his primary race against Rep. Celeste Maloy (R-UT). 

After a too-close-to-call primary election on June 25, a recount revealed Maloy held a slim lead of 176 votes. Jenkins is concerned over at roughly 1,171 mail-in ballots that were not tallied because they were postmarked after the deadline to be counted. 

The state Supreme Court justices are slotted to hear oral arguments about the contested ballots on Friday morning. 

The lieutenant governor’s office warned in a brief filed Wednesday that state law mandates ballots must be postmarked before the deadline in order to be counted. 

“While the Respondents are sensitive to the issues in this case and find it unfortunate that some voters’ ballots were not postmarked on time, they do not and cannot control the Postal Service,” Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson’s office argued in the brief. “Nor can they ignore the clear dictates of the law. The ultimate responsibility for ensuring that a ballot is returned on time lies with the voter.”

Jenkins believes that excluding the contested ballots violates the state’s constitution. “Take a look at the Utah Constitution, Article I, Section 17… from 1896!  ‘All elections shall be free, and no power, civil or military, shall at any time interfere to prevent the free exercise of the right of suffrage.’” Jenkins said in a post to X. “Including the post office,” he added.

The Utah Supreme Court’s decision to listen to the case comes after a federal judge denied Jenkins’s campaign request to have the contested ballots counted.