A voting rights Equal Protection claim was filed in Utah federal court Wednesday, suing the Utah Lieutenant Governor and county officials who are responsible for Utah elections, seeking to enjoin them from certifying the results of the June Utah primaries on July 22 as scheduled and requiring them to count certain mailed ballots they have refused to count.
The issue stems from the fact that all southern Utah mail is routed to Las Vegas to be stamped and then routed. Local Post Offices in southern Utah do not hand stamp any mail. So, ballots that were properly taken to southern Utah Post Offices on June 24 that should have been post-marked on that date, and with the local location, instead were all trucked to Las Vegas and stamped as mailed from Las Vegas on June 25. This has resulted in potentially several thousand ballots not being counted, including Navajo Nation and Ute Mountain Ute Tribe citizens’ ballots.
COLT submitted the attached Declaration and Exhibits this morning
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United States District Judge David Nuffer denied the motion for injunction this afternoon. He did say at the hearing that he read COLT’s declaration closely and is very concerned about the impacts to tribal voters, but could not grant the relief plaintiffs sought because “Utah law places the burden on voters to obtain a timely postmark.”
Judge Nuffer also noted: “It’s probably clear from this exercise we’ve had in this case, that state reliance on postmarks is misplaces given postal service policies.”