An election worker hands out “I Voted” stickers at the Main Library in Salt Lake City on Election Day, Tuesday, Nov. 5, 2024. (Photo by Spenser Heaps for Utah News Dispatch)
Deadlines to canvass and certify Utah’s election results have come and gone, yet one race is still in limbo.
It’s an unprecedented situation in the state — leaving that election unresolved until at least mid-December.
Tom Stone, a Wasatch County school board candidate, filed his campaign disclosures due Oct. 29 two days late, on Oct. 31. County officials didn’t inform him of any consequence. Then the Nov. 5 election came and went, and Stone — as far as he knew — won his race with 41.67% of the vote to his opponent, Bradley Ehlert, who got 38.61% of the vote, according to the county’s unofficial election results.
Then on Nov. 14, nine days after the election, Wasatch County Clerk/Auditor Joey Granger informed Stone that he had been disqualified from the race. Granger wrote in a letter that Stone “failed to file the required (general election) financial disclosure within the required deadline,” and that the county would “no longer count any votes for this candidate.”
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Now, Stone is suing Wasatch County, alleging Granger was “supposed to immediately notify” Stone he had failed to file his report, and that “if he failed to file the report within 24 hours after the deadline … he would be disqualified,” according to his lawsuit.
“She also had the discretion to impose a fine of $100 on Mr. Stone,” the lawsuit says. “However, Ms. Granger did none of those things.”
Stone’s attorney — who also serves in the Utah Legislature — Sen. Todd Weiler, R-Woods Cross, also wrote in the lawsuit that “no one, including Mr. Stone, was notified prior to the general election that he had been disqualified.” Additionally, voters didn’t know until nine days after the election, and the county continued counting Stone’s votes until his disqualification notice on Nov. 14.
The lawsuit also says that on Oct. 2 and Oct. 29, county officials sent reminders “to each local candidate — except Mr. Stone — to ensure that they were aware of the disclosure deadlines.”
“No explanation has been provided to Mr. Stone as to why he was singled out from the other candidates and treated different by Wasatch County,” Weiler wrote.
Fourth District Court Judge Jennifer Mabey heard arguments for the case in a hearing on Nov. 19. At the end of that hearing, she granted a temporary restraining order blocking the county from certifying that race’s results later that day, allowing more time to hash out the issue in court.
Wasatch County finalized all of its other elections later that afternoon, but left Stone and Ehlert’s race off the countywide canvass.
The ruling came after the Nov. 19 hearing hit a “turning point in Stone’s favor,” KPCW reported, when deputy county attorney Shelby Thurgood (who originally argued Granger didn’t know that Stone’s financial disclosure report was overdue) spoke up late in the hearing to correct herself.
“I misspoke earlier,” Thurgood said, according to KPCW. “I had stated that it was my understanding that she [Granger] didn’t know it was late, but the correction is she did know that it was late, but not to address it with the disqualification.”
The judge said she had initially questioned Stone’s claim that by waiting until after Election Day and after most votes had been counted that the county had waived its right to disqualify Stone.
But, Thurgood’s correction “shifted her thinking,” KPCW reported. “Mabey said if Granger knew about the missed deadline but failed to act, Stone has a reasonable chance of success in his case.”
Stone’s race will remain undecided until at least mid-December. A three-hour evidentiary hearing has been scheduled for 1 p.m. on Dec. 18 before 4th District Court Judge Shawn Howell, who is now taking the case.
Mabey heard the Nov. 19 emergency hearing because of a tight deadline (counties across the state were meeting that day to certify their results), but she voluntarily recused herself from future proceedings because she knows one of Stone’s relatives, according to KPCW.
“Ultimately, everyone involved should have the highest level of confidence that the final outcome in this case is based solely on the evidence and any applicable statutory and case law, and not upon any connection that the Court has with one party or another, however distant that may be,” Mabey wrote in an order of recusal, encouraging the case to be reassigned to a judge who lives outside of Wasatch County.
Weiler told Utah News Dispatch on Tuesday that he believes Stone has a good chance of winning his case based on the judge’s comments during that Nov. 19 hearing. He pointed to a legal doctrine called “laches,” which asserts that if a claimant waits too long to assert a right then he or she loses that right.
“In election cases, the delays are magnified,” Weiler said. “For instance, the statute of limitations on a lot of things in Utah is four years. But you can’t wait four years in an election controversy.”
In a written response, Wasatch County attorneys denied Stone’s allegations. They argued that the district court didn’t have “jurisdiction over this matter” and that Stone’s case had “failed to cite any state law” that allows him a cause of action.
However, Utah law “does contain a mechanism for contesting election results,” Wasatch County attorneys wrote, arguing that Stone and his attorney should have filed a petition as outlined under a section of Utah code that allows Utahns to contest election results after the election has been canvassed.
“They’re not wrong about that,” Weiler said, “but what they’re overlooking is that their clerk did something that has never been done in Utah before, and other county clerks are appalled and dismayed. They’re like, ‘I can’t believe they did that.’ But if you read the statute, we can’t contest the election until after it’s canvassed. This election hasn’t been canvassed.”
Weiler said this is an “unprecedented” situation in Utah, calling Granger’s actions an “abuse of authority.”
“You don’t let the voters vote on somebody and then see the outcome, and then say, ‘OK, well now I’m going to disqualify them,’” Weiler said. “Imagine if that happened to (President-elect Donald) Trump in a swing state. We’d have riots in the streets. You don’t do that. You don’t undermine the will of the people that way.”
Wasatch County voters won’t know who will fill that school board seat until after the Dec. 18 evidentiary hearing. That leaves roughly two weeks before state and local candidates will begin being sworn in for 2025.
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