Opinion: Constitutional principles should guide — or stop — election challenges

Despite the final primary election canvass having concluded, ongoing election disputes remain. One of them, the 2nd Congressional District, was a very close race. Rep. Celeste Maloy was declared the winner over Colby Jenkins by a 214-vote margin out of more than 107,000 ballots cast. The other was not close at all, with incumbent Gov. Spencer Cox prevailing over state Rep. Phil Lyman by more than 37,000 votes.

To borrow a line from “Sesame Street,” one of these things is not like the other.

When viewed through a constitutional lens, verifying a close election outcome in the 2nd Congressional District primary makes sense to ensure that the will of the people prevails. On the other hand, continuing to contest a clear gubernatorial primary result seeks to overturn the undisputed will of the people.

The introductory framework to the U.S. Constitution (aka the preamble) begins with “We the People of the United States …” and then goes on to list the goals of the Constitution to be union, justice, domestic tranquility, defense, general welfare and intergenerational liberty. In other words, the first thing that our Constitution does is to emphasize the fact that America’s governing document ought to be understood as an expression of the will of the people.

Enacting the will of the people is such an important priority in American governance, in fact, that the framers embedded its expression into the Constitution in a wide variety of ways that sometimes even compete with each other: nationwide representation in the presidency, statewide representation in the U.S. Senate and local representation in the U.S. House of Representatives (not to mention constitutional provisions that subject the will of the people to checks and balances so as not to allow a “tyranny of the majority” ). This can sometimes make the will of the people difficult to discern in policymaking — is the will of the people what a nationally elected president wants, or what a majority of locally elected members of Congress want? However, it should be clear to all that forwarding the will of the people is a guiding constitutional principle in America.

When a candidate contests an announced final election outcome, how do we discern whether that act supports or undermines the spirit of our Constitution? In part, it is a matter of how easy it is to discern the will of the people by how ballots were cast.

This is a challenge in the 2nd Congressional District primary election, where the vote was almost evenly split between Maloy and Jenkins, leaving neither as the obvious winner. Conducting a recount in this circumstance, as allowed by Utah election laws, is genuinely an act to ensure that the final decision reflects the will of the people. Of course, if the recount should confirm the result of the canvass, it doesn’t necessarily follow that ongoing lawsuits would also be an attempt to ensure that the will of the people prevails.

In the gubernatorial primary, on the other hand, the will of the people is clear: Republican primary voters want Cox as their nominee over Lyman. The current lawsuits seeking to change that result are, quite literally, attempts to overturn the obvious will of the people in the GOP gubernatorial election.

As difficult and disheartening as it is to publicly acknowledge an election loss, our civic character — putting community, state and nation before self — and our devotion to constitutional principles demand it when the final vote tally makes the will of the people clear. Doing otherwise means taking our nation’s Constitution in our hands, staring directly at it and saying, “I am more important.”

Derek Monson is the chief growth officer at Sutherland Institute, a nonprofit whose mission is to advance principled public policy and promote the constitutional values of faith, family and freedom.