Utah congressional candidate contests election results in state Supreme Court as recount begins

SALT LAKE CITY — Immediately retell The Republican challenger hot on the heels of the election for Utah’s 2nd House of Representatives seat is challenging the primary results in the state Supreme Court, a last-ditch effort to recover enough spoiled votes to overtake his opponent.

Colby Jenkins trailed U.S. Rep. Celeste Maloy by 214 votes, or 0.2 percentage points, when precincts certified their results last month, putting the race within the recount zone, which in Utah is when the difference in votes for each candidate is equal to or less than 0.25% of the total votes cast. Jenkins formally requested the recount on Monday but followed that up with a lawsuit Tuesday night challenging the certification of the results of 1,171 ballots that were disqualified due to late postmarks.

Jenkins is suing Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson, the state’s chief elections officer, and clerks in nine of the state’s 13 counties, alleging that they knew about delays in processing ballots and postmarking mail but failed to address the problem or inform voters that their ballots would not be counted. He is asking the Utah Supreme Court to order those clerks to count all ballots disqualified because of invalid or late postmarks.

Henderson’s office declined to comment on the lawsuit.

State law requires that ballots be postmarked no later than the day before the election. Jenkins’ complaints center on a late batch of ballots from southern Utah that were sent through Las Vegas by the U.S. Postal Service.

Even before votes were cast in his race, Jenkins had joined many national Republicans in expressing skepticism about the transparency of U.S. elections. In a June debate, he sidestepped a question about whether he would vote to certify the results if former President Donald Trump lost in November, saying he had serious concerns about the last presidential race in which President Joe Biden emerged victorious.

Jenkins hopes his legal challenge will earn him an election victory. But even if it doesn’t, he told The Associated Press he’s committed to fighting for the rights of all voters in his district.

“Every legal vote, every vote must be counted,” Jenkins said. “Hope remains. We will fight on.”

Volunteers from the Jenkins campaign are stationed around the state this week to monitor county election workers as they conduct the recount, which is scheduled to be completed next Tuesday. Henderson has also invited interested members of the public to witness the process.

Maloy, who is seeking her first full term in Congress after winning a special election last fall, has said she doesn’t expect the recount to change the outcome. But if Jenkins wins his legal challenge and more than 1,000 additional ballots enter the mix, they could turn the tide in a tight race that has favored Maloy.

“I remain a strong supporter of counting every legal vote,” Maloy said. “The decision to appeal to the Utah Supreme Court is one we expected, and I trust the justices will give the issue the attention it deserves.”

Jenkins, a retired U.S. Army officer and telecommunications specialist, defeated Maloy earlier this year at the GOP state convention, which typically favors candidates farthest to the right. He won the endorsement of delegates after earning the support of Utah’s right-wing U.S. Sen. Mike Lee, but he did not win by a large enough margin to bypass the primary.

Since then, the congresswoman has used Trump’s show of support to maintain a narrow lead over her challenger, who emphasized his loyalty to the former president throughout much of the campaign.

Her primary victory would give Trump his only win this cycle in Utah, a rare Republican stronghold that has yet to fully embrace its grip on the GOP. A Jenkins win would mean that all of Trump’s picks in Utah would lose their primaries this year, giving Trump’s reputation as a Republican kingmaker another blow.

The 2nd District groups liberal Salt Lake City with conservative St. George and includes many rural western Utah towns between the two cities. The winner of the Republican primary is favored to defeat Democratic candidate Nathaniel Woodward, a family law attorney, in November. The district has not been represented by a Democrat since 2013.