Judge rejects Phil Lyman's voter-data challenge, citing lack of real harm

SALT LAKE CITY — A U.S. district judge threw out a case filed last summer by gubernatorial candidate Phil Lyman against Utah Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson, saying he lacked standing.

On Thursday, the judge dismissed the case regarding voter information as "moot," despite Lyman's claims of a statutory violation between a Utah state law and federal law.

District Judge David Nuffer said he believes the National Voting Registration Act, or NVRA, ultimately overrides the Utah voter-data restrictions, but ruled that violation of the federal statute — without concrete harm — was not enough to give the court jurisdiction.

"Mr. Lyman only wants information to monitor the lieutenant governor's compliance with the act. He faces no threat of prosecution; no civil penalty; no viewpoint discrimination; and no adverse consequence beyond being denied access to data he seeks," Nuffer said. "That is no more than an informational injury."

In his case, Lyman accused Henderson of violating the act for not providing him with the voter information he requested, which is protected under Utah law over privacy concerns.

Only government employees acting in their official capacity and political parties can access this voter information.

Utah law also classifies the voter registration records of some "protected individuals" as "withheld," meaning they cannot be accessed by political parties, only government employees acting in their official capacity.

This designation applies to voters who are public figures, law enforcement officers, members of the armed forces, victims of domestic violence, those with a protection order, and all those who had already opted for their information to be private before the "withheld" designation was created in 2020.

Last July, Henderson sent a letter to the Department of Justice ensuring that Utah was in compliance with the National Voting Registration Act.

Chris Adams, the president of the Public Interest Legal Foundation, the nonprofit organization that represented Lyman in the case, previously told the Deseret News that the main concern was not Henderson, but that the Utah law doesn't comply with federal law.

"No other state in the country does what Utah does and block public records from the public simply by marking a box that 40% of the people have hidden records," Adams told the Deseret News. "No state in the country even comes close to them."

Lyman's federal lawsuit is one more in a list of unsuccessful cases he's brought against his political opponents since 2024.

Contributing: Brigham Tomco

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