Signature audit finds ‘some errors’ — but Cox still ultimately qualified for primary

A legislative audit released Tuesday found “some errors” in Utah’s signature gathering verification process and offered a slate of recommendations to improve the system that allows for an additional path to Utah’s primary ballot, alongside the convention nomination process.

However, while legislative auditors made clear their audit was separate from official, formal processes already in place to qualify or disqualify candidates, they concluded candidates in the 2024 Republican primary “fulfilled the requirements that were given to them” to qualify for the ballot.

“Our audit findings are designed to be prospective,” auditors wrote in their report. “Candidates filled the requirements asked of them under existing processes. Further, while we identified error rates, each candidate had submitted additional signatures and would have had time to collect additional signatures, if needed.”

Auditors also noted their work is “intended to improve signature verification moving forward and is not a part of formal processes to qualify or disqualify candidates from the ballot.”

Utah lawmakers asked legislative auditors to investigate the signatures on nominating petitions for three Republican candidates: Gov. Spencer Cox (who is running for reelection), Rep. John Curtis (who is running for outgoing Sen. Mitt Romney’s seat in the U.S. Senate), and Derek Brown (who is running for attorney general). The audit also fell under legislative auditors’ typical duties to audit the state’s election system every even-numbered year.

What the audit found

The audit — which tested a random sample of 1,000 signatures for each candidate and reviewed every signature packet each candidate submitted — found the error rate for incorrectly validated signatures for the three candidates ranged between about 1.3% and 2.4% (1.3% for Brown, 1.7% for Curtis and 2.4% for Cox), according to the report.

It also found signature verification errors went both ways — with some signatures that should have been counted but weren’t because they were incorrectly invalidated. The error rate for incorrectly invalidated signatures ranged between 0.9% and 6.4% (0.9% for Curtis, 1.9% for Cox and 6.4% for Brown).

Based on the error rate from those random samples, auditors noted that had the incorrectly validated signatures been excluded, the candidates could have potentially fallen short of the 28,000-signature threshold requirement for statewide races to qualify for the primary ballot.

But auditors also pointed out the candidates had submitted additional signatures that could have been counted by the Davis County Clerk’s Office (the office that counted and verified signature packets for these races), but the office stopped counting as soon as it determined the candidates hit 28,000 signatures. Had the office, however, determined they still fell short, candidates would have had more time to gather signatures.

Take Cox’s signature packet, for example. Out of 32,883 signatures submitted by Cox’s campaign and vetted by the Davis County Clerk’s Office, the office rejected 4,877, bringing Cox’s total to 28,006. After reviewing Cox’s signatures, legislative auditors determined his packets had a 2.4% sample error rate of incorrectly validated ballots totaling an estimated 665 incorrectly validated signatures, as well as a 1.9% error rate for incorrectly invalidated signatures totaling an estimated 93 signatures.

In total, auditors estimated Cox had about 572 incorrectly validated signatures when subtracting those that were incorrectly invalidated. Cox, however, only submitted an additional 492 signatures that the Davis County Clerk’s Office could have reviewed. That number is short of the additional 572 he could have potentially needed, but had the Davis County Clerk’s Office notified Cox he needed to collect more signatures, his campaign would have had 28 more days to do so.

“As far as we can tell, the candidates, there was nothing more they could have done. They did everything they were asked to do,” Jesse Martinson, an audit manager who helped author the report, told Utah lawmakers on the Legislative Audit Subcommittee on Tuesday, while presenting the findings. “This is more looking at the process (with) Davis County and how they facilitated that process, the signature verification.”

Packets with ‘many non-matching’ signatures sent to attorney general

Auditors also wrote in their report that earlier this year, the Davis County Clerk’s Office flagged some packets for having “many non-matching signatures.” The office sent those packets to the Lieutenant Governor’s Office for further review and “potential submission” to the Attorney General’s Office, and did not count them in the signatures it verified.

Auditors wrote that they also reviewed “concerning packets in the custody” of the Attorney General’s Office as part of their audit. The audit report did not specify how many of those signatures were concerning.

“Because of those earlier concerns,” auditors wrote, “we looked through every packet that each candidate submitted to identify concerns such as photocopying, signature gatherers signing for people, family members signing for each other, or signatures being submitted for the wrong candidate.”

It’s not clear what, if anything, will come of those packets that were sent to the state’s top prosecutor.

Auditors, however, noted that even though improvements can be made to the signature verification process, their audit also found the Davis County Clerk’s Office’s verification had a high rate of accuracy — to the tune of between 97.6% and 98.7% of the time for correctly validating signatures and between 93.6% and 99.1% of the time for correctly invalidating signatures.

Why so much scrutiny on signature gathering?

The auditors’ report comes during an election year that’s seen extra political scrutiny on signature gathering amid a contentious contest for the governor’s office.

Cox’s Republican rival, Rep. Phil Lyman, lost to Cox in the June 25 primary by nearly 9 percentage points or 37,525 votes. Throughout his campaign, Lyman has been attempting to cast doubt on Cox’s qualification for the Republican ballot. While Lyman won his place in the GOP primary by earning 67.5% support from Utah Republican Party delegates at the party’s state nominating convention, Cox qualified by gathering enough signatures under an alternative path allowed in Utah law.

Lyman has spent much of his campaign catering to Republicans who favor the caucus-convention system and who have long detested the passage of SB54, a 2014 law that allows the dual path to the primary ballot via signature gathering and not just through a convention nomination.

Lyman has repeatedly but unsuccessfully attempted to challenge Cox’s signature gathering qualification, losing records requests seeking voter records classified as private under Utah law, and even going as far as attempting to contest the election in court. The Utah Supreme Court in August tossed his demand to annul the results, rejecting Lyman’s assertion that a political party’s internal nomination should trump state election law.

Now, Lyman is continuing his bid for governor as a long shot write-in candidate for the Nov. 5 general election. On Tuesday, ahead of the legislative audit report’s release, Lyman’s campaign in a post on X continued to accuse Cox of being an “illegitimate candidate,” and he criticized the legislative audit as not good enough.

“The signatures that ‘qualified’ him for the Primary ballot have never been verified by an unbiased, third party,” Lyman’s campaign posted. “The ‘audit’ was not a forensic audit and it was the foxes auditing the henhouse, we want an audit of the foxes.”

Cox’s campaign responds

A campaign spokesperson for Cox issued a statement Tuesday saying Cox and Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson “respect the efforts of legislative auditors and their recognition that the Cox campaign fully complied with the law” while also expressing support for recommended improvements to the process.

“We are especially supportive of the proposed change that would allow candidates to continue submitting signatures even after they reach the prescribed threshold, a process currently not allowed in Utah election law,” the Cox campaign spokesperson said. “Additional signatures from Cox campaign supporters were submitted to the campaign but were prohibited from being submitted to the county clerk’s office due to the prohibition on submitting additional signatures once a candidate has qualified for the ballot.”

Utah law states clerks must reject signature submissions if the candidate has already met his or her qualification threshold.

“As the incumbent Governor and Republican nominee, the Governor’s focus continues to be making a case for policies that will keep Utah’s future bright to earn the support of voters throughout the state,” Cox’s campaign spokesperson said.

Dispelling falsehoods: What the audit did not find

State elections director Ryan Cowley, during Tuesday’s legislative committee meeting reviewing the audit’s findings, said it’s easy to focus on the audit’s suggestions for improvements, but he also said it dispels some unfounded accusations that have been floating around this election cycle.

“First of all, they didn’t find any signatures that didn’t exist. Everybody who they reviewed in these packets was an actual person,” Cowley said. “They did not find private voters who were made up or had invalid signatures. They didn’t find any fraudulent signatures that were accepted. They didn’t find that elected officials verified their own signatures. And they didn’t find that any non Republicans, unregistered residents or other ineligible people had signed these packets.”

Cowley said the audit shows those allegations “were not true. They’re false.”

“But with this audit, what it did find is the signatures were properly reviewed in the manner prescribed by law, and the processes were followed,” Cowley said. “And in fact this audit found that they did that very well.”

While Cowley welcomed the audit’s recommendations to improve verification processes, overall he said a roughly 98% accuracy rate is “pretty incredible” considering the Davis County Clerk’s Office was tasked with reviewing more than 300,000 signatures in a matter of months.

Republican legislative leaders welcome audit’s findings

Two of the state’s most powerful Republicans — Senate President Stuart Adams, R-Layton, and House Speaker Mike Schultz, R-Hooper — issued a joint statement on Tuesday alongside the audit report lauding efforts to improve Utah’s election system while also stressing that the audit “confirmed that Spencer Cox, John Curtis, and Derek Brown fulfilled the requirements to qualify to be on the ballot.”

“Nothing is more important than the integrity of our election systems,” Adams and Schultz said. “That’s why Utah proactively and regularly reviews its processes to improve and enhance security and efficiency. By focusing on these critical areas, we aim to maintain a robust and trustworthy electoral system that effectively serves the public.”

Adams and Schultz noted the audit came in response to the Legislative Audit Subcommittee’s request that auditors review the signature verification process and offer recommendations for improving future elections “as part of an ongoing effort to strengthen the security of and public trust in our election systems.”

“Although the audit identified some errors in the signature verification process, these would not have affected the primary election’s outcome,” Adams and Schultz said. “Each candidate  submitted more signatures than required by law and would have had sufficient time to gather  additional signatures if needed. This audit was conducted solely to improve the signature process moving forward and has no bearing on the validity of candidates during this current election.”

The Senate president and House speaker also said they “fully support” Cox, Curtis and Brown as Republican candidates in the upcoming general election on Nov. 5, and “acknowledge their diligent efforts to fulfill the requirements to run for office.”

Adams and Schultz also welcomed the audit’s recommendations and indicated they’ll likely be addressed in some form during the upcoming 2025 legislative session, which is scheduled to convene Jan. 21.

“While we are confident Utah conducts secure and fair elections, the audit highlighted several  opportunities for improvement, including strengthening controls, verification standards, and  transparency in the signature verification process,” they said. “The Legislature has opened bill files to address these concerns, and we will continue to work to clarify and improve election policies, processes, and practices in statute.”

Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson, Utah’s top election official who oversees county clerks that administer elections, wrote a letter in response to the audit thanking auditors for their efforts and accepting the recommendations.

“My office consistently strives to improve election processes and procedures and are consistent with our election laws,” Henderson wrote. “We are never satisfied with the status quo. To that end, we appreciate the findings and recommendations of this audit — many of which we stand ready to implement. We look forward to working with the Legislature to continue our shared commitment to strengthening Utah’s elections.”

Utah News Dispatch is part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization.