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Three Republican races were decided by one or two votes on Saturday at their county convention, and on Wednesday one of the losers filed a challenge to the vote.
Linda Housekeeper missed a chance at a District 60 primary race against Brad Daw by one delegate vote and says there were plenty of reasons for concern in the process.
"The reason I'm doing this is not because I lost. Frankly, it's a relief," Housekeeper said. "[But] I'm not the only one that has a winnable case."
A group of challengers, including Housekeeper, has been dogging Republican leadership this year over access to delegate e-mail addresses and the use of automatic delegates, termed "ex officio" in Utah County.
In her challenge, Housekeeper states that ex officio delegates are illegal according to state party rules and that the 10 such delegates in her district -- including Lt. Gov. Gary Herbert -- shouldn't have been allowed to vote.
She claims two open delegate seats were left unfilled even though both vacancies were reported and names were put forward as replacements well in advance of the convention's credential distribution. And Housekeeper is concerned that at least two delegates said they lost their ballots and at least one of those got another one. Having extra ballots floating around is a recipe for disaster, she said.
She's hired a professional investigator to get affidavits from delegates in her district.
"I'm doing this to prevent witness tampering," she said.
Party chairwoman Marian Monnahan said she'll have to look into the allegations of missing ballots, and plans to reconvene the credentials committee to hear Housekeeper's claims sometime next week.
"We will invite her so she can tell her side of the story," Monnahan said.
The committee will likely have just two choices: reject the claim or agree with Housekeeper and notify the proper authorities that there will be a primary election. Trying to bring back the delegates for another vote just wouldn't be feasible.
"I think it would be absolutely impossible to reconstruct that," Monnahan said.
The other two close races have so far gone unchallenged. Keith Grover beat Lisa Shepherd with 60.6 percent of the delegate vote and Francis Gibson beat incumbent Aaron Tilton with 60.8 percent of the vote. Candidates needed 60 percent of the delegates in their districts to skip a primary and go straight to the general election in November.
That's especially critical to Republicans in Utah County, where a Democrat hasn't held an elected partisan position in a decade. That means a Republican without a primary has been a shoe-in for office in the general election. |
