POLITICS + GOVERNMENT
Two people tried to double vote at Salt Lake GOP convention, charges could come
Apr 9, 2022, 5:49 PM | Updated: Apr 11, 2022, 8:30 am
The Salt Lake County GOP Convention was held at Magna High School on April 9, 2022 (Lindsay Aerts/KSL NewsRadio)
(Lindsay Aerts/KSL NewsRadio)
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KEARNS, UT — Two men were caught trying to vote more than once in the race for County Clerk at the Salt Lake County GOP Convention Saturday, and the chair of the party says it may take legal action against them.
Republican delegates wait in line at Kearns High School Saturday for the Salt Lake County convention, to nominate candidates to the primary and general election ballots.
“We’re going to probably send this to the Attorney General, we may actually prosecute,” said Salt Lake GOP Chairman Chris Null. “That’s a serious issue in our system.”
This happened during the vote counting in the GOP race for Salt Lake County Clerk between Nancy Lord and Goud Maragani, which Maragani ended up winning with 69% of the delegate vote — despite the mishap.
“One person took two ballots and stuffed [them] into the container… he ran off,” said Null. “Another person attempted, and that person we stopped it before he was able to accomplish it.”
The second man was then called up on stage where Null said he didn’t have a good explanation for why he allegedly did it.
“He claimed he didn’t do it but we had enough witnesses.”
Both men were then stripped of their delegate titles in a vote from the body of delegates, one of the men was a local precinct chair.
#utpol I can see @GOPUtah standing by the table where they’re counting votes. Delegates just voted to strip two people of their delegate titles after they were caught trying to vote more than once… A large portion of this crowd very much views paper as the securest way to vote.
— Lindsay Aerts (@LindsayOnAir) April 9, 2022
Null was asked for his response to comments he had made earlier in the meeting where he said the vote for County Clerk would be by paper because it’s the “safest.”
“But look — we fixed it, right?” He said. “We were able to identify that that didn’t affect the outcome of the election… Paper ballots actually proved efficient here.”
As for what legal charges may come, that’s unclear since a political party is a private business.
Both Lord and Maragani were asked if they were okay with the vote continuing, as was the body of delegates. Once everyone agreed the race continued to be counted. The outcome wasn’t impacted.
As for who won, Maragani now advances to the general election in November as the GOP nominee since he got more than 60% delegate support.
There were 1,253 total credentialed delegates gathered in Kearns High School’s auditorium.
The process of that one nominating vote took more than an hour.
They’re still collecting votes in the race for county clerk at @SLCountyGOP. Here’s what that looks like. pic.twitter.com/01DqW8gghB
— Lindsay Aerts (@LindsayOnAir) April 9, 2022
