As county clerks across Utah validate signatures for the Proposition 4 repeal effort, some Utah voters are still requesting that their names be removed from the petition.
Last month, Bennett Hackett stood outside Utah State University's Merrill-Cazier Library holding a sign and loudly chanting.
“Do not sign this petition," he yelled. "This petition aims to overturn fair election maps in Utah! They are here to take away voting rights from Utah citizens!”
A few weeks earlier, the second year mechanical engineering student had joined the Brave Utahns Rapid Rapid Response Network, a grassroots volunteer organization that stations members near petition circulators collecting signatures for an effort to repeal Proposition 4.
Prop 4 was approved by Utah voters in 2018, creating an independent redistricting commission and setting standards for drawing congressional maps. After voters approved the initiative, lawmakers weakened portions of the law and adopted congressional maps that did not follow the independent commission’s recommendations, prompting an ongoing court battle.
For three months, petition circulators hired by the Republican-backed group Utahns for Representative Government gathered signatures at libraries, grocery stores, gas stations, and other public spaces across the state. Their goal? Collecting the roughly 140,000 signatures required to put a repeal of Proposition 4 before Utah voters. But a number of reports suggest this process may not have been carried out legally.
Hackett has seen several of these encounters firsthand.
“We're not sure how many of them are being intentionally misleading," he said of the petition circulators. "I think some of them definitely are at least omitting all of the facts to try and get people to sign at that very moment.”
Up until the Feb. 15 signature-gathering deadline, Hackett and his fellow volunteers were collecting videos of signature gathers. In one video shared with UPR, a man can be heard yelling, “Sign for Trump, my man. Keep the state red.”
Hackett’s organization hopes to use these videos to invalidate some of the signatures collected, because misrepresenting the contents or purpose of a petition in order to persuade someone to sign — or not sign — is against state law.
Despite how it may seem, Katharine Biele, president of the League of Women Voters Utah, one of the groups suing the Utah State Legislature, said the conflict surrounding Prop 4 isn’t about party politics.
“This has nothing to do with Republicans or Democrats," she said. "What I try to tell people and tell the citizens — this is not about gerrymandering. Gerrymandering is legal in the United States of America. This is about fair maps. This is about giving every voter a voice in the elections.”
Utah Republicans seem to agree — though with opposite conclusions. During a December press conference, Senate President Stuart Adams echoed that same sentiment. But he said the court had overstepped when it ruled on the state’s congressional map.
“This is not about partisanship. It's about protecting the integrity of decisions that shape our representation," he said. "The courts — they're not made to take public comment, hold public hearings or make fine tuned adjustments. That is not their job, and the process they have is not made to do that. But when they try, they create chaos, and that's what we're experiencing right now.”
At the same press conference House Speaker Mike Schultz argued the Legislature is merely trying to uphold the state’s constitution by returning power to lawmakers.
“Article Nine of the Utah constitution," he said, "reads word for word, 'The legislature shall divide the state into congressional, legislative, and other districts accordingly.'”
Even so, Biele shared her concern that many names of Utahns who had been misled, or never even signed at all, may still remain on the petition. Both of these circumstances are illegal under state law.
“If you go to ProtectUtahVoters.com it will tell you what you can do," she said. "There is also a link ... where you can see a list of everyone who has signed the repeal initiative, and you should go through and make sure your name isn't in there erroneously.”
Those who would like their signature removed have 45 days after their name appears on the petition website to request a withdrawal. For those past the 45-day window, Biele recommends voters contact their county clerk directly.
Meanwhile, clerks’ offices across the state are working to meet the March 7 deadline for signature verification while also handling a surge of withdrawal requests. As of last week, more than 2,300 voters have asked to have their names removed from the petition.
If the petition comes back with about 140,000 valid signatures by March 7 — including support from at least 26 of Utah’s 29 Senate districts — the repeal will go on the November ballot, where Utah citizens will once again vote on the fate of Proposition 4.
As the legal fight and petition process move forward, advocates like Biele say the complexity of the process is part of the problem.
“This is very confusing, and I'm so sorry," she said. "I think that's part of the strategy, on the part of the legislature, is to get the citizens very, very confused.”
