The Utah Supreme Court denied Phil Lyman’s petition to toss out the GOP primary gubernatorial election results and remove Utah Gov. Spencer Cox and Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson from office.
The order was signed by Chief Justice Matthew Durrant and issued Tuesday.
Lyman filed his own petition to the Utah Supreme Court requesting the court annul the primary election and put his name on the general election ballot. He argued since he won at the Utah Republican Convention and became the official nominee for the primary ballot, he should also appear on the general election ballot. The petition named Cox, Henderson, Utah GOP chair Rob Axson and the Utah Republican Party as respondents.
“Today the Utah Supreme Court rightly struck down former Republican gubernatorial candidate Phil Lyman’s frivolous lawsuit,” said Henderson in a post on social media. “For all his talk of election integrity, Phil Lyman is the only candidate in the state who has actively tried to steal an election by demanding that the Supreme Court crown him the victor of a race he soundly lost. Every Utahn should be appalled by Lyman’s shameful disregard for the rule of law, the state constitution, and the will of the voters. In America, we don’t win elections through the courts—we win or lose at the ballot box.”
In response to a request for comment from the Deseret News, Lyman said in a text message, “We plan to appeal.”
Axson, in a statement to the Deseret News, said, “The Utah Republican Party has been, and will continue to be, focused on winning elections and helping advance the principles of our Party. It is too important for Utahns that we elect Donald Trump and all of our nominees and we won’t be distracted from that effort.”
The order denying the petition for extraordinary relief said the Utah Supreme Court had already rejected the argument that an internal party rule should trump state law in a previous case. The court also said it could not consider pleas for relief for any other candidate and that Lyman did not raise any new issues.
The court said Lyman had not shown a legal basis for setting aside the results of the primary election.
“Mr. Lyman cites no authority to support his assertion that a political party’s internal rules override state election law,” said the order. “And he overlooks that we reached the opposite conclusion in Utah Republican Party v. Cox.” There, the court said, it concluded that if the Utah Republican Party wishes to remain a qualified political party, it has to follow statutory requirement.
Lyman’s petition also requested Henderson produce voters’ information. His running mate Natalie Clawson had filed a government records request for the names, signatures and identifying information of all the voters who signed signature gathering petitions for particular candidates including Cox and Henderson. This record was denied because under state law, signatures are protected information and voters are allowed to make their information private if they choose. The office offered to provide a list of names in accordance with statutory requirements.
The court denied this request because it said Lyman did not show “he has exhausted his administrative remedies under GRAMA, nor has he provided documentation to support the factual allegations on which his challenge is based.”
About the request to remove Cox and Henderson from office, the court said he did not offer any viable factual or legal basis for that request. By denying the petition, Durrant wrote that Lyman’s motions are moot. This means his motion to halt the printing of ballots was rendered irrelevant.