The office of the Utah Attorney General at the Capitol in Salt Lake City is pictured on Tuesday, Jan. 16, 2024. (Photo by Spenser Heaps for Utah News Dispatch)
Eleven people were charged on Monday with forgery and other crimes in connection to the signature gathering process that helped candidates qualify for the 2024 primary election.
Candidates in Utah have two options to get on the primary ballot — they can rely on their party’s convention, where delegates choose their preferred candidates, or they can collect enough signatures from registered voters.
In the leadup to the primary election, Utah Gov. Spencer Cox and a number of other candidates chose the signature gathering process, hiring a company called Gathering Inc. to help with the canvassing. Per Utah code, voters are required to sign “packets” approved by the lieutenant governor’s office, filling in their names, addresses, ages and signatures.
Five of the 11 people charged on Monday were Gathering Inc. employees who, according to charges filed across three different counties, forged some part of the signature gathering process.
The signature threshold varies for each race. Statewide offices, like the governor or attorney general, require at least 28,000 signatures; congressional races require 7,000 per district; state Senate races require 2,000; and state House races require 1,000.
Matt Lusty, the campaign spokesperson for Cox, said in a statement that the governor’s campaign gathered enough signatures to exceed the state’s requirement of 28,000. He told Utah News Dispatch that the behavior outlined in the charging documents should be “prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”
“The Attorney General’s office should be applauded for its actions today,” said Lusty. “The Governor is also appreciative of recent legislative efforts to further strengthen trust in our elections, including the work done in this year’s session to increase transparency and enhance protections to the candidate signature-gathering process.”
Utah Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson, whose office was tasked with verifying that the signatures gathered matched the signatures on file for the voters, said in a statement Tuesday that her staff were notified of the irregularities last year.
Her office conducted an investigation, then referred the matter to the attorney general’s office.
“I commend the county clerks for flagging suspicious signature packets and the Attorney General’s office for following through with the investigation that led to criminal charges against the alleged perpetrators. We have no tolerance for cheating of any kind in our elections,” Henderson said.
The 11 people were charged with either forgery, communications fraud or violation of certificate of nomination procedures, with each allegation taking place between January and March 2024.
- Benson Angilau was charged in Utah County’s 4th District Court with nine counts of forgery and one count of communications fraud, both third-degree felonies. Angilau worked for Gathering Inc. and was initially assigned to Salt Lake County, but was then reassigned to Utah County. “Of the 2,243 voter names and signatures (Angilau) submitted, only 84 signatures matched the voter’s official signature and were deemed valid,” the charges read.
- Axel John-Anthony Burt was charged in Washington County’s 5th District Court with six counts of violation of certificate of nomination procedures, a class A misdemeanor. Burt worked for Gathering Inc. in St. George and the greater Washington County area. Charges say packets for at least six voters were in fact signed by their spouses.
- Colton Louis Drake was charged in Washington County’s 5th District Court with two counts of forgery, a third-degree felony, and eight counts of violation of certificate of nomination procedures, a class A misdemeanor. Drake worked for Gathering Inc. in St. George and the surrounding parts of Washington County, and admitted to his employer that he “made the mistake of asking for people to sign for there (sic) spouse which was as high as 40% of (his) signatures,” according to court documents.
- Robert Randall Edwards was charged in Salt Lake County’s 3rd District Court with five counts of forgery, a third-degree felony. Edwards worked for an unnamed company in Salt Lake and Tooele counties. Only 45 of the 249 signatures that were checked were deemed valid, according to the charges; “68 signatures, approximately twenty-seven percent, did not match the signatures on file with the election officials,” court documents read.
- Rocko John Huntsman was charged in Washington County’s 5th District Court with eight counts of forgery, a third-degree felony, one count of violation of a certificate of nomination procedures, a class A misdemeanor, and one count of communications fraud, also a class A misdemeanor. Huntsman worked for Gathering Inc. in St. George and the surrounding parts of Washington County, and admitted to allowing people to sign the petition for other voters, according to court documents. That includes letting one person sign for their whole family, the Utah Attorney General’s Office said. Huntsman estimated “30 to 50 signatures on the nomination petitions he circulated were signed by a voter’s family member rather than the voter. He did this on each of the three petitions he circulated, for a total of 90 to 150 signatures,” court documents read.
- Kevin W. Jeong was charged in Utah County’s 4th District Court with four counts of forgery, a third-degree felony, and one count of violation of a certificate of nomination procedures, a class A misdemeanor. Jeong worked in Utah County for an unnamed company. According to charging documents, “of the 176 signatures in the packets (Jeong) turned in, only 71 were valid.”
- Sakura Jordan was charged in Washington County’s 5th District Court with six counts of forgery, a third-degree felony. Jordan worked for an unnamed company in Washington County. “Of the 115 signatures in the four packets, only 32 voter signatures were deemed valid. 62 signatures, approximately forty-nine percent, did not match the signatures on file with the election officials,” charging documents read.
- Phyllif D. Karpeh was charged in Washington County’s 5th District Court with seven counts of forgery, a third-degree felony. Karpeh worked for an unnamed company in Washington and Iron counties. “Of the 383 signatures in the eleven packets checked, only 182 voter signatures were deemed valid. 77 signatures, approximately twenty percent, did not match the signatures on file with the statewide voter registration database,” court documents read.
- Arkemi Robinson was charged in Washington County’s 5th District Court with 10 counts of forgery, a third-degree felony. Robinson worked for an unnamed company in Washington and Iron counties, and “of the 212 signatures in the eleven packets checked, only 43 voter signatures were deemed valid. 131 signatures, approximately sixty-two percent, did not match the signatures on file with the election officials,” court documents read.
- Denton Williams was charged in Salt Lake County’s 3rd District Court with eight counts of forgery, a third-degree felony. Williams was hired by an unnamed company to gather signatures in Washington and Iron counties, but according to court documents, just four of the 99 signatures he turned in were deemed valid.
- Joseph Elias Wilde was charged in Washington County’s 5th District Court with four counts of violation of certificate of nomination procedures, a class A misdemeanor. Wilde was working for Gathering Inc. in the St. George area, and later admitted that some voters signed for their family members who weren’t home, according to court documents. “He stated one or two signatures a day were signed by a family member, and he was out nearly every day for three to four weeks,” according to court documents.
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