SALT LAKE CITY – With a recount underway, the closely trailing Republican challenger for Utah's 2nd District U.S. House seat is contesting the primary election results in state Supreme Court in a last-ditch effort to recover enough disqualified ballots to overtake his opponent.
Colby Jenkins was 214 votes, or 0.2 percentage points, behind U.S. Rep. Celeste Maloy when counties certified their results last month, placing the race within recount territory, which in Utah is when the difference in votes for each candidate is equal to or less than 0.25% of the total number of votes cast. Jenkins formally requested the recount on Monday but followed it up late Tuesday with a lawsuit contesting the certification of results over 1,171 ballots that had been disqualified for late postmarking.
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The Utah Supreme Court swiftly rejected his motion for failing to explain why the Supreme Court instead of a district court should take the case. He was permitted to refile and did so Wednesday.
Jenkins is suing Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson, the state’s chief election officer, and clerks in nine of the district's 13 counties, claiming they were aware of ballot processing and postmarking delays but did not address the issue or inform voters that their ballots would not be counted. He is asking the court to direct 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 ballots to be postmarked no later than the day before the election. Jenkins' complaints revolve around a late batch of southern Utah ballots routed through Las Vegas by the U.S. Postal Service.
Even before votes were cast in his race, Jenkins had joined many national Republicans in voicing skepticism about the transparency of U.S. elections. In a June debate, he avoided answering whether he would vote to certify the results if former President Donald Trump loses in November, and he said he had serious concerns with the last presidential race in which President Joe Biden came out on top.
Jenkins hopes his legal challenge will help notch him an election victory. But even if it doesn't, he told The Associated Press he is committed to fighting for the rights of all voters in his district.
“Every legal vote, every voice must be counted,” Jenkins said. “Hope remains. We fight on.”
Volunteers with the Jenkins campaign are posted around the state this week monitoring county election workers as they conduct the recount, which must be completed by next Tuesday. Henderson also has 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 will change the outcome. But if Jenkins wins his legal challenge and more than a thousand additional ballots enter the mix, they could turn the tide in a tight race that has to this point always favored Maloy.
“I remain strongly in favor of counting every legal vote,” Maloy said. “The decision to appeal to the Utah Supreme Court is one we anticipated, and I trust the justices will give the issue the consideration it merits.”
Jenkins, a retired U.S. Army officer and telecommunications specialist, defeated Maloy earlier this year at the state GOP convention, which typically favors the farthest-right candidates. He got the nod from delegates after earning the backing of Utah’s right-wing U.S. Sen. Mike Lee, but he did not win by a wide enough margin to bypass the primary.
The congresswoman has since leveraged a late endorsement from Trump to maintain a slight edge over her challenger, who spent much of the campaign touting his loyalty to the former president.
Her victory in the primary would notch Trump his only win of this election cycle in Utah, a rare Republican stronghold that has not fully embraced his grip on the GOP. A Jenkins win would mean all of Trump’s picks in Utah lost their primaries this year, dealing yet another blow to Trump's reputation as a Republican kingmaker.
The 2nd District groups liberal Salt Lake City with conservative St. George and includes many rural western Utah towns tucked between the two cities. The Republican primary winner is favored to win in November over Democratic nominee Nathaniel Woodward, a family law attorney. The district has not been represented by a Democrat since 2013.