Audit finds Cox, Curtis and Brown campaigns likely gathered enough valid signatures

Utah State Auditor John Dougall said his audit of signature gathering for three candidates showed they very likely all gathered enough valid signatures to get on the ballot.

Dougall undertook a review of signatures gathered by Gov. Spencer Cox, Senate candidate Rep. John Curtis, and Derek Brown, attorney general candidate, after Rep. Phil Lyman, R-Blanding, a Republican gubernatorial candidate, raised questions about the signature verification process. He was denied the ability to have copies of the signature packets because state law classifies these signatures as protected records.

“Given the concerns expressed by some over the inability to review the names of voters with protected voter registration information who had signed candidates’ packets, we concentrated our work specifically reviewing a sample of those signatures,” said Dougall in a press release.

Dougall said the audit found the Davis County Clerk’s Office, which verifies the signatures of candidates in statewide races, “performed their validation duties with care and professionalism.”

“Based on the statistical sampling of validating signatures within our primary sub-population of validated signatures for voters with privacy protection as well as consideration of the secondary population of uncounted signatures, we conclude that it is statistically likely each of these candidates met the statutory threshold of required valid signatures,” said Dougall.

The office’s audit and an additional not yet complete legislative audit of the signature gathering process came after a request from Cox and Lt. Gov. Deirdre Henderson, Brown and Curtis, who all got onto the primary ballot by gathering signatures and won their primaries.

“We believe this audit will confirm that proper signature verification laws and procedures were followed,” the four candidates said in an earlier statement. “We trust our county clerks and are committed to addressing any issues found to enhance the process.”

Dougall said the office obtained the list of signatures identified as valid on the petitions of Cox and Henderson, Brown and Curtis. The office also identified the signers who had requested their voter information be private. The office randomly selected a representative sample size.

“Out of the 1,252 signatures we sampled, we identified one signature that we believe was fraudulent,” said Dougall. “For the other 11 exceptions, while we believe those signatures were not substantially similar to any of the signatures in the statewide voter registration database, we cannot conclusively determine they were not signed by the voters.”

Each candidate submitted additional signatures that were not counted by the county’s clerk office. When counting signatures on a packet, the office stops counting on the page when the candidate received the requisite number of signatures (for statewide races, that is 28,000 signatures).

Given the number of signatures Curtis and Brown submitted that were not counted, the office determined it did not need to perform additional testing.

The Cox campaign submitted a smaller number of signatures that were not counted. Dougall said the number of signatures that could have been validated exceeded the estimated number of projected exceptions. The office concluded it was statistically likely the Cox, Curtis and Brown campaigns gathered enough valid signatures.

“While this letter notes exceptions, this should not negatively reflect on the quality of work performed by Davis County Clerk’s office,” said Dougall. “Rather, the low exception rate indicates that they performed their validation duties with care and professionalism.”

“We will continue our review into other aspects of Utah’s election process, but we hope our efforts provide the electorate with greater insight into the recent signature validation process,” said Dougall in the release.