Utah’s records committee denied a request from state representative and former GOP gubernatorial candidate Phil Lyman to obtain a list of ballot petition signatures submitted for a state Senate candidate, citing an ongoing investigation in Washington County.
The decision came after a raucous hearing Thursday at the state office building in Taylorsville, which was interrupted several times by at least a dozen Lyman supporters in the room. Marie Cornwall, the citizen representative on the committee, quelled multiple outbursts from supporters, and ultimately asked several to leave the room ahead of the committee's vote.
A pair of state troopers stepped to the front of the hearing room to stand between the attendees and the committee after the vote, as several attendees shouted and pointed at the committee members. One man called the panel a "banana republic" as he stormed out.
In denying Lyman's request to obtain the signature packets, the majority of the State Records Committee said turning over the records could harm the integrity of the investigation underway in Washington County.
Linda Petersen, the media representative on the committee, was the lone dissenting vote. She said she believes the public interest in the signature packets "rises to the level of being equal" to the concern about the ongoing investigation.
Lyman has questioned the signatures Gov. Spencer Cox collected to qualify for the primary election. Cox was projected the winner of the June 25 Republican primary for governor and leads Lyman by 37,525 votes. All county tallies were certified last week, and the statewide canvass is Monday.
The company Cox used to gather signatures, Gathering Inc., is currently under investigation by the Washington County attorney related to gathering signatures for state Sen. Don Ipson, whose Senate district encompasses about half of the county.
Lyman and his running mate, Natalie Clawson, have sued the Utah Lieutenant Governor's Office in an effort to obtain the unredacted signatures, names and addresses of voters who signed candidate petitions for Cox, U.S. Senate candidate Brad Wilson and attorney general candidate Derek Brown. He has also filed a Government Records Access and Management Act request with the lieutenant governor asking for the signature packets from those candidates.
The campaign is allowed to examine Cox's signature list in person, but cannot make copies or remove the packets from the county clerk's office.
Lyman says he seeks to verify the list of voters who signed for Cox, saying he believes there may be issues with Cox's signatures as well. The initial records request for the Ipson signatures was filed by Michael Clara, and the Lyman/Clawson campaign intervened on appeal after the request was denied.
Davis County officials verified the signatures collected by Cox — because his running mate, Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson oversees the state's elections office — and Lyman's campaign has argued that the governor may not have qualified for the ballot if signees of Ipson's signature packets who are being questioned also signed to put Cox on the ballot.
Eric Clarke, the Washington County attorney, told the State Records Committee the number of signatures in question in the Ipson investigation is between 30 and 60. Cox's campaign met the threshold of at least 28,000 verified signatures ahead of the GOP convention in April, and a campaign consultant told KSL.com on Thursday that the campaign submitted about 33,000 before the deadline.
Clarke argued to the committee that turning over the list of Ipson's signatures would potentially harm the ongoing investigation.
He also said there is not an urgent need for the signature list to be turned over because Ipson advanced out of the state convention in April, making the validity of his signatures moot as it concerns his legitimacy on the ballot.
"What we're asking for is, give us some time to do an investigation," he said.
The hearing was only focused on the request to obtain the signatures related to Ipson’s campaign, not the signatures collected statewide on behalf of Cox.