The Lieutenant Governor’s Office, which oversees Utah’s elections, has reprimanded Utah County Clerk Aaron Davidson for modifying a candidate’s filing form after the filing period deadline.

The office sent Davidson a letter on Jan. 25 addressing issues regarding modifications made to a declaration of candidacy for Michael Cook, who filed to run for state Senate District 25.

The letter, which was obtained by the Daily Herald, specifically addressed an issue in January where Cook filed to run for the Utah Senate and didn’t complete the declaration of candidacy form properly. The form was first accepted by the clerk’s office on the last day of filing, which this year was Jan. 8 at 5 p.m.

After Cook had filed for candidacy, the clerk’s office discovered that he had failed to fill in his party affiliation on the form. Davidson told the Daily Herald that he called Cook to inquire what party he was running as and corrected the form himself with other clerk office employees present.

The letter, signed by Ryan Cowley, director of elections, stated that this process did not follow the statute, citing Utah Code 20A-9-201(10), which states a “declaration of candidacy filed under this section may not be amended or modified after the final date established for filing a declaration of candidacy.”

“​​This letter is to instruct you to follow the statute and never amend or modify a declaration of candidacy form, except as may be expressly allowed under the statute,” wrote Cowley. “Any modifications or amendments must be made by the candidate, in person, and done before the filing period ends. We further instruct you to provide training to your staff regarding verification of the forms filled out by candidates before accepting them.”

Cowley instructed the county clerk’s office that modifications of a candidate’s declaration after the filing deadline can only be made following Utah Code 20A-9-202(5), which allows for an objection to be filed with the lieutenant governor or the clerk’s office.

The letter states that Cowley doesn’t believe a candidate leaving the party affiliation blank is an “objection that the clerk should sustain.” He added the candidate is responsible for properly filing out the form and the filing officer should review it before acceptance.

Cook, who was filing to run for state Senate District 25, said that the employees at the clerk’s office should have caught the error with his party affiliation when he filed but said he doesn’t believe Davidson is at fault.

“That form should have never been stamped, and that’s not Aaron’s (Davidson) issue at all,” Cook said. “If anything, Aaron was the one that caught the error.”

Cook added that he got a phone call from Davidson shortly after leaving the clerk’s office, during which Davidson asked him what he would like to put as his party affiliation. Cook then told him over the phone he was running as a Republican.

Cook and Davidson both said that Cook had put his party affiliation on the conflict of interest form that was submitted to and approved by the state. Davidson also said that Cook had verbally stated he was a Republican while in the office as well.

“He confirmed it (the party affiliation) many times while he was in the office,” Davidson said. “It was confirmed through the state that he was running as Republican. … The intent was completely there.”

In regards to the letter, Davidson said it was “truthful” in pointing out a mistake he had made. He said his staff had made a mistake in not catching the error and his intent was to ensure the Cook could still be on the ballot.

“We tried to fix that mistake, so it wouldn’t preclude him from being on the ballot from our mistake,” he said. “And so if I made a mistake by putting that Republican (affiliation) on there, at least it wasn’t a mistake that precluded him from being on the ballot.”

In a statement to the Daily Herald, Cowley said, “The county clerk was the filing officer and erred in amending the form, and doing so after the deadline. Mr. Cook’s candidacy could certainly be subject to a legal challenge, but absent such a challenge Mr. Cook will remain a candidate.”

Sen. Mike McKell, who Cook will be contending against in the Republican primary, said he found Davidson’s process in handling the issues “troubling.”

“I think the real failure is Aaron’s office needs to be there to assist candidates and I think there was a real failure on their part to assist candidates,” he said.

“Learning the backstory that (the form) changed because the county clerk filled in the form is to me something that’s troubling, especially for somebody who campaigned on election integrity,” he added.

On Davidson’s campaign website, he discusses concerns about mail-in ballots and ranked-choice voting, indicating he intends to “clean up the voter rolls.”

In 2022, The Salt Lake Tribune reported that Davidson spoke on a panel before a showing of the movie “2000 Mules,” a documentary that espouses the conspiracy that ballots were trafficked for President Joe Biden in the 2020 election.

McKell stressed that he believes Cook has a right to be on the ballot, adding that he has no plans to contend his opponent’s candidacy.

Cook’s candidate filing form is publicly available on the county clerk’s website, showing the two amendments, one stamped on Jan. 8 at 5:20 p.m. and the other on Jan. 11.

Objecting another error and an attempt to pursue convention nomination

A couple of other issues arose with Cook’s declaration of candidacy, one being that he had written “State Rep 25” instead of Senate District 25.

Davidson told the Daily Herald that the Lieutenant Governor’s Office called him after the filing deadline about properly labeling the district on the form. To rectify the issue, Davidson made an objection to the state, which was recommended by the Lieutenant Governor’s Office.

In a letter dated Jan. 11, Davidson contacted Cook, informing him that his office had identified the error, adding that he believed Cook had signified his “intent” to the staff that he was filing for Senate District 25 by verbal confirmation, paying a filing fee for a Senate candidate and indicting the district on a form to the state election office.

The letter stated that Davidson had made the objection to the state’s election office and requested that Cook come into the Utah County Clerk’s Office to file an amended form correctly stating which district he was running for. Davidson and Cook both told the Daily Herald that Cook went in person to correct it.

According to an email exchange on Jan. 17 between Davidson and Cowley, the state’s election director, Davidson did follow the state’s direction and Utah statute in remedying the error.

“Using 20A-9-202(5), we encouraged you to make an objection which allows the candidate to ‘cure the problem by amending the declaration,'” Cowley wrote Davidson in an email obtained by the Daily Herald. “This was done timely and the Office of the Lt. Governor agrees that the candidate should have been allowed to make this change.”

The last issue that arose was regarding Cook’s choice of his path to the ballot. In Utah, candidates have three options on their filing form for how to get on the ballot — gather signatures, pursue party nomination or both.

On Cook’s form, he selected only the signature-gathering path. Cook said that after filing, his campaign team suggested pursing the GOP nomination, which led Cook to ask Davidson if it was possible to make that change.

Davidson then spoke with Cowley, asking if Cook could amend his nomination path. In the same email exchange discussing the form, Cowley said that this could not be altered.

Davidson told the Daily Herald that Cowley previously had told him during a phone call that Cook could go to the Republican Party and request to run for its convention, which Cook did. According to Cook and Davidson, Utah County Republican Party delegates voted to allow him in the convention during a committee meeting in January.

But, according to the email, Cowley said if Cook was to win at the convention, the only way he would be allowed on the ballot was if he collected enough signatures because that’s what was indicated on his form.

“The candidate chose the signature-only path and I don’t think an alternative path exists for a candidate to get on the ballot outside of what they selected on their filing form,” Cowley wrote to Davidson in the Jan. 17 email.

A GOP state Senate candidate needs to gather 2,000 signatures from registered Republican voters in their district 14 days before the party convention in order to be on voters’ ballots.

Cook expressed frustration with the Lieutenant Governor’s Office for “blocking him” from pursuing the GOP party nomination. “That’s very unfair in my eyes,” he said.

Regardless, Cook said he is now working on collecting the required amount of signatures.

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