Estimated read time: 4-5 minutes
- A Utah judge blocked the certification of a Wasatch County School Board race.
- Candidate Tom Stone was disqualified for missing a financial disclosure deadline.
- Stone claims wrongful disqualification due to lack of notification and late announcement.
HEBER CITY — A Utah judge on Tuesday temporarily blocked the certification of the race for Wasatch County School Board Seat E after one of the candidates sued the county clerk over his disqualification from the race.
Wasatch County Clerk/Auditor Joey Granger disqualified Tom Stone from the school board contest last Thursday, saying he failed to file the required financial disclosure forms by the Oct. 29 deadline.
"Accordingly," she wrote, "Tom Stone has been disqualified and the county will no longer count any votes for this candidate."
While Stone admits he missed the deadline — and filed the requisite disclosures on Oct. 31 when he realized the oversight — he sued the county and Granger last week, claiming he was wrongfully disqualified because Granger failed to send notice of the approaching deadline and because the disqualification was not announced until nine days following Election Day — when preliminary results showed him ahead.
His lawsuit, filed in Utah's 4th District Court, alleges all other local candidates except Stone were notified of the disclosure deadline on Oct. 2 and Oct. 29.
"No explanation has been provided to Mr. Stone as to why he was singled out from the other candidates and treated differently by Wasatch County," the complaint states.
It cites Utah statute that says if a candidate is disqualified, the election official "shall notify every opposing candidate for the county office that the candidate is disqualified," send an email to each eligible voter informing them of the disqualification, "post notice of the disqualification on the county's website," and, if possible, remove the candidate's name from the ballot.
"Ms. Granger failed to take any of the actions outlined ... prior to Election Day," the lawsuit states. "Instead, she waited until Nov. 14, 2024 — nine days after the election — to disqualify Mr. Stone."
"Utah courts have favored honoring the intent of voters where procedural irregularities occur, provided there is no evidence of fraud or malfeasance," the complaint adds. "Invalidating results or disregarding ballots disenfranchises voters who acted in good faith and complied with the rules as they understood them at the time of the election."
Todd Weiler, a Republican state senator and attorney for Stone, compared the actions to a referee of a football game "changing the rules on how we're calling holding penalties mid-game" Tuesday.
"If she had disqualified him (before Election Day) and notified voters and posted signs at polling places, we wouldn't be having this discussion, because I would tell (Stone), 'You don't have a case,'" he told KSL.com. "But once she let the election happen and once she posted those results, now you've got people saying he won the race and it's like pulling a rug out from underneath them after he won."
Although there was only one other candidate in the race and the late disqualification didn't deny voters the opportunity to choose between multiple other options, Weiler said the process of disqualifying Stone after the election "absolutely sends chills when it comes to people who are already nervous about our election process."
He said he spoke to two former state election directors and a pair of former county clerks, all of whom said they've "never seen anything like this."
"This is absolutely unprecedented and I've had people tell me that they feel like this is a total abuse of the discretion she has in that office," Weiler said.
Granger did not respond to a request for comment, nor did deputy Wasatch County attorney Shelby Thurgood.
Judge Jennifer Mabey agreed with Stone's request and granted a preliminary injunction after a hearing Tuesday morning to prevent the certification of the race, which was slated to occur during the county's board of canvassers meeting Tuesday afternoon.
She also ruled the case would be reassigned to another judge going forward, citing a "remote affiliation" she has with Stone. She said her association with Stone "does not have a conflict that would require immediate disqualification in this case" but asked that a judge outside of Wasatch County oversee the future of the case to avoid "even the appearance of potential bias."
No follow-up hearing has been scheduled to weigh the evidence in the case, but Weiler said he expects a quick process in the next couple of weeks given the urgency of the issue.
Correction: An earlier version incorrectly stated the judge issued the preliminary injunction on Thursday instead of Tuesday.
