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SALT LAKE CITY — Using his official legislative letterhead, Rep. Phil Lyman, R-Blanding, requested the complete Utah primary voter rolls from the Lieutenant Governor's Office.
The letter is dated June 28. In it, Lyman said the voter rolls would be used to cross-check certain candidates' signature gathering packets.
"I am entitled to these records as a legislator," wrote Lyman in the letter. "They are not for campaign purposes and will be used purely for the statistical analysis of the 2024 primary election."
Lyman, who recently lost his primary bid for governor, filed a lawsuit with his running mate Natalie Clawson to obtain the unredacted signature gathering packets of the campaigns of Gov. Spencer Cox and Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson, Brad Wilson and Derek Brown. The suit named officials in the Lieutenant Governor's Office as defendants and was filed in Utah's 3rd District Court on July 3.
"This stands as official notice that these records are vital to assessing the integrity of the election system and the verifiability of the results," wrote Lyman. His request included the voter rolls prior to the election as well as where they stood on June 28.
When contacted by the Deseret News about his plans for using the voter rolls, Lyman did not respond by time of publication.
Clawson made a government records request in June. The Lieutenant Governor's Office denied Clawson's request due to state law that allows Utah voters to withhold their information from candidates for public law office and a different law that says signatures are protected information.
These signature gathering packets include the names, addresses and signatures of registered Republicans in Utah who signed the packets in order to help candidates get onto the primary ballot.
