Utah County certifies election results; Commissioner Powers Gardner criticizes county clerk
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- Voters wait to cast their ballots inside the Provo health and justice building on Nov. 5, 2024
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- Utah County Clerk Aaron Davidson speaks during a county commission meeting in Provo on Wednesday, July 26, 2023.
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- Utah County Commissioner Amelia Powers Gardner speaks during a meeting at the Utah County Administration Building in Provo on Wednesday, March 29, 2023.
Acting in an official capacity as the Board of Canvassers, members of the Utah County Commission certified the 2024 election results Tuesday at the county offices in Provo.
But the turbulent election cycle — which saw County Commissioner Amelia Powers Gardner calling for County Clerk Aaron Davidson to rescue himself from overseeing the election and had Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson questioning Davidson’s preparedness — had room for a bit more drama before closing.
During Tuesday’s meeting, Davidson announced there was a discrepancy between the number of ballots and the number of people who got credit for voting, with a surplus of 415 ballots. A majority of those came from human error in processing provisional ballots, he reported.
Additionally, there was one location where 107 ballots came from voters who did not check in “completely,” Davidson said, but the Lieutenant Governor’s Office, the county attorney and he were all in agreement to count the ballots anyway.
“It was corroborated that they did, in fact, show up,” Davidson said. “They showed their ID, they actually signed (the ballot), but they didn’t hit the submit (button) because they felt it was going to send to print, (but it) wasn’t going to print.”
Powers Gardner, a former Utah County clerk, took exception to Davidson’s reasoning and shared her thoughts directly from the dais.
“It is highly concerning that we now have two elections in a row where you have counted more ballots than people who got credit for voting,” she told Davidson. “I understand why, but this is what conspiracies are made of. It is hard for us to look at the public and say, ‘Have confidence in us,’ when this is two elections in a row where we literally have counted more ballots than we can say voters had credit for voting.”
“Luckily for us,” Powers Gardner added, “we don’t have any elections that are close enough that this could have affected the outcome of the election. … We literally need to praise the Lord that our margins were wide enough that we’re not in court today, but we’re here instead to canvass an election.”
“If I was sitting in your seat and you were sitting in my seat,” she later said, “the words you would have for me would not be as kind as ‘praise the Lord that our margins were wide.’ You would accuse me of fraud. You would accuse me of being dishonest.”
From there, a conversation between the two played out in the commission chambers.
“The difference is I’m willing to answer the question and be transparent,” Davidson said.
He later added, “I could make this contentious, but I’m just gonna let you say your piece. We did a tremendous job.”
“Yes, and you need to do better,” Powers Gardner immediately responded. “You counted more ballots than you gave people credit for voting. That is the stuff conspiracies are made of.”
The interaction comes less than a month after Davidson told the Deseret News he has kept track of how public officials vote, even saying state Sen. Mike McKell didn’t put a stamp on his ballot.
That prompted Powers Gardner to question Davidson’s integrity and whether he should be the man in charge of the election.
“It’s incredibly abnormal,” she told Utah News Dispatch. “It’s not only abnormal, it’s inappropriate. He should be worried about counting the votes and ensuring that every person who has a right to vote has the opportunity to do so in whatever way works best for them.”
Davidson defended himself by telling Utah News Dispatch, “Anybody can go to a drop box and watch who drops their mail-in (ballot) in a drop box. This whole controversy is completely made up. It’s just Michael McKell trying to make drama out of what’s not drama. It’s public information.”
Election Day itself also was newsworthy for the Utah County Clerk’s Office because of printing issues and long delays at voting locations, though voters in other counties also experienced wait times.
Henderson told Utah News Dispatch a lack of planning was to blame.
Davidson addressed those issues in Tuesday’s meeting, admitting there were “difficulties that were presented to us,” and adding that there was an 11% in-person turnout rate, which is an uptick from a 3.5% rate for this year’s primary.
“We did end up running out of magenta toner in a couple of places and their printer stopped printing, but we printed what they called emergency ballots here and we took them out to them,” he said. “They require a little bit more processing but no location ran out of ballots. We dealt with every issue that came up and we handled it, I thought, spectacularly and I want to commend my staff. My staff did a tremendous job. I cannot say more. They performed when they needed to.”
