The individuals charged collected signatures in five of Utah’s 29 counties — Iron, Salt Lake, Tooele, Utah and Washington. Approximately five of the contractors worked with Gathering, Inc., also known …
Utah Attorney General Derek Brown announced this week that 11 contractors with signature gathering companies are facing “forgery and forgery-related charges.”
The allegedly forged signatures were largely captured during the signature verification process, charging documents said, and were not included in the counted signatures that allowed candidates to qualify for the ballot.
The individuals charged collected signatures in five of Utah’s 29 counties — Iron, Salt Lake, Tooele, Utah and Washington. Approximately five of the contractors worked with Gathering, Inc., also known as Gather, and the others’ employers were not listed on charging documents.
All 11, according to the charging documents, collected signatures during the 2024 primary election cycle.
Nearly 60 candidates in Utah contests — from the gubernatorial race, to congressional races, to state legislative races — submitted signature petitions for verification last election cycle. In Utah, candidates can either qualify for the ballot by gathering a certain number of signatures from members of their party, the volume varying by the office, or being chosen by party delegates.
Gather owner Tanner Leatham estimated five to six campaigns that used his company’s services were impacted.
Among Gather’s customers is Gov. Spencer Cox, whose campaign spent $147,000 on signature gathering, according to financial disclosures.
The newly elected Brown also used a signature petition to qualify for the primary ballot, although he worked with a company called In the Field.
According to charging documents, one contractor admitted to signing some voters’ signatures without their permission “so he could make more money.” Charged contractors frequently had spouses or other family members sign for an individual, something one contractor told an investigator he did to “kill two birds with one stone.”
Leatham said all of Gather’s contractors were trained on Utah’s laws around signature gathering, and the company will continue to provide that training for the hundreds of contractors it hires each election cycle. The short-term job can be difficult, Leatham noted, because it requires going door-to-door in the winter.
“When individuals choose to break the rules we do everything we can to help the state go after these people,” Leatham said in a statement, adding, “These individuals made poor and dishonest choices, completely ignoring the law and their training.”
A statement from the attorney general said the cases were referred to his office by the elections office under Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson, the state auditor’s office and the Washington County clerk’s office.
Utah Auditor Tina Cannon said in a statement Tuesday her office has “been involved in a joint effort with the lieutenant governor’s office related to signature gathering during the 2024 election cycle.”
Last year, the attorney general’s office charged 13 men with falsifying signatures on petitions for Republican candidate Bruce Hough in the 2023 special election to replace retiring Rep. Chris Stewart. Nine of the defendants entered into pleas in abeyance and paid a fine. One plead guilty and was sentenced to three years probation. Two had the charges dismissed. One case remains pending.
Brown’s announcement came days after the end of Utah’s annual legislative session, during which lawmakers passed multiple bills meant to increase transparency around the verification of signatures on candidate petitions.
Sen. Wayne Harper’s SB164 allows poll watchers to observe the signature verification process, mandates an audit of signature comparisons and requires election officers to certify a certain percentage of signatures beyond the threshold. Another, SB53 from Sen. Calvin Musselman, R-West Haven, establishes a process for voters to remove their name from a candidate nomination petition.
From Leatham’s perspective, cases like these show why lawmakers should also reconsider the signature threshold set for candidates — lowering it would limit the reliance on contractors to qualify for the ballot.
In statewide races, candidates have to collect and have verified 28,000 signatures — over a thousand more than the entire population of Farmington.
“It is too difficult and too expensive as it is right now,” Leatham wrote in an email. “Lowering the threshold of signatures will make it easier for candidates to use friends, family and volunteers to collect signatures. We need more candidates on the ballot not less, too many races go uncontested year after year.”
Salt Lake Tribune reporter Robert Gehrke contributed to this report.
Source: Utah News