Lawmakers shut down discussion of Utah Republican Party’s chaotic presidential poll

For the second time in less than a month, Utah lawmakers on Wednesday yanked from a legislative committee agenda a discussion of the Utah Republican Party’s chaotic presidential preference poll on Super Tuesday in March.

After previously being rescheduled from the Government Operations Interim Committee’s Aug. 21 meeting amid pressure from Republican party leadership, the committee’s Senate chair Sen. Dan Thatcher, R-West Valley City, put the discussion at the top of Wednesday’s agenda with a full slate of presenters who showed up to the meeting expecting to discuss issues that left many Utah Republican Party members feeling frustrated and, in some cases, disenfranchised due to long lines, technical difficulties and problematic access for people with disabilities.

But when it came time to begin the presentation, the rest of the Government Operations Interim Committee (made up of a supermajority of Republicans) voted to strip it from the agenda to the anger of Thatcher, a Republican who has not shied away from breaking with his fellow GOP lawmakers on certain issues.

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“I am genuinely disappointed. Truly, deeply disappointed that we have people who came here today who just want to be heard,” Thatcher said, after several other Republican lawmakers argued they didn’t believe it was an “appropriate” discussion to be having at a legislative committee.

Thatcher said he knows it can sometimes be “embarrassing or uncomfortable for people” to answer questions around whether or not the presidential preference poll functioned appropriately or whether it’s the “best way moving forward.” However, he argued, “if we’re afraid to even ask questions, I think it makes us look a whole lot worse than whatever those answers might be.”

Thatcher argued it’s worth discussing “what happened with the presidential primary election, whether or not there are people who wanted to be able to vote for the president that didn’t get an opportunity to do so, whether or not we’re in compliance with Utah’s constitution about being able to vote, and whether or not there is more benefit to doing it (in a caucus) that outweighs whether or not we are violating civil liberties.”

Nearly 86,000 votes were cast in the Utah GOP’s presidential preference poll — a turnout of 9.6% of the state’s 890,637 active registered Republican voters ahead of Super Tuesday. The results weren’t surprising. Former President Donald Trump beat his only remaining opponent at the time, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, 56% to 43% and won all of the state’s 40 delegates.

In reaction to the pulled agenda item, the Utah Democratic Party issued a news release in which it said its vice chair Oscar Mata had accepted an invitation to present on the issue and “defend the right of every Utahn to cast their vote in a presidential primary.”

“If Republicans hadn’t voted to continue their caucus night cover-up,” Mata said in a prepared statement, “I would have told them that every Utahn deserves to have their vote counted by professional election officials rather than partisan leaders. The decision by Republican politicians to protect themselves from facing accountability for disenfranchising their own party members is unacceptable, and frankly, reeks of corruption.”

It’s worth noting that Thatcher, a Republican, was the only one to vote against removing the agenda item, and Democrat Sen. Jen Plumb, D-Salt Lake City, voted in favor along with other Republicans.

What are lawmakers refusing to discuss?

Utah law allows political parties to choose how they select their nominee for president. This year, the Utah Democratic Party opted to participate in the state’s presidential primary on March 5, while the Utah Republican Party decided to instead hold an in-person preference poll in conjunction with its statewide caucus meetings.

Wednesday’s committee was scheduled to hear a presentation from Daryl Acumen, a data scientist from Draper and longtime member of the Utah Republican Party who has held several leadership roles, including vice chairman of the Utah County Republican Party. He’s also been an outspoken critic of the party’s love of the caucus-convention system and its unsuccessful efforts to undo SB54, a 2014 law that set a dual route to the primary ballot, allowing candidates to bypass the convention system by gathering signatures to qualify.

After Super Tuesday, Acumen sent a text message to more than 410,356 Utah Republicans asking them to rate their experience with the party’s presidential preference poll on a scale of 1 to 5, with 5 being very satisfied and 1 being very unsatisfied.

According to his presentation, more than 10,400 responded, of which 6,001 rated “1” and about 260 rated even lower, “minus one” or “zero.” In all, Acumen’s presentation said nearly 73% of respondents were “unhappy” with their experience of the party’s presidential preference poll. His presentation also included hundreds of quotes from respondents expressing frustrations.

One commenter, according to Acumen’s presentation, called the experience “more excruciating than enthralling, more appalling than appealing — so much so in fact — that my wife is questioning whether she wants to ever go back to our neighborhood caucus again!”

The committee was also slated to consider a report from the Disability Law Center, which found “numerous obstacles hindering the voting process” at the Utah GOP’s caucus meetings, including limited parking and lack of greeters or signage leading to voter confusion. It also found none of the party’s caucus meetings “satisfied a simple list of standards for physical access and basic accommodations.”

“With facilities and accommodations failing to meet their needs, voters faced unsafe conditions, were denied equal access to information, or were unable to fully participate in selecting party leaders and/or cast their presidential preference vote,” the Disability Law Center report says. “These obstacles highlighted systemic issues within the caucus voting infrastructure, underscoring the imperative for reforms to ensure equitable access to the democratic process for all citizens.”

However, the Government Operations Interim Committee stripped those items from its agenda after Rep. Stephanie Gricius, R-Eagle Mountain, said she read the materials included for Wednesday’s discussion and “it’s become clear to me this is not the appropriate place and the appropriate way to have this conversation.”

“We have materials that impugn members of the public, which I find completely inappropriate,” she said. “And using this committee to air personal grievances is both inappropriate and a waste of time for both this committee as well as the general public.”

Gricius didn’t elaborate on how the meeting materials “impugn members of the public.” But other lawmakers, including Rep. Kay Christofferson, R-Lehi, argued in favor of striking them from the agenda because the materials were “not very objective.” Christofferson pointed to a line in Acumen’s presentation that read, “the purpose of ‘the caucus system’ is to minimize participation and to block qualified candidates from the ballot.”

“That’s telling me there’s an extreme bias,” Christofferson said. “I just don’t feel like the meeting materials suit our needs.”

Thatcher offered to remove Acumen’s presentation to quell committee members’ concerns so they could proceed with discussing the presidential primary, but Gricius argued the entire agenda item needed to be removed because the discussion had already been “tainted.”

“This is an issue I would like to see heard, but we need to come at it from a clean slate,” she said.

Unaddressed frustrations

After the committee’s vote to rip up the agenda item, attendees expecting to weigh in got up and left.

Nate Crippes, public affairs supervising attorney with the Disability Law Center, in an interview with Utah News Dispatch expressed some frustration, noting his organization is nonpartisan and has long been going to polling places to survey for accessibility and offer ways to improve voter access.

“At this point we just wanted to share the report and get those concerns out there so we could improve the system,” he said. “If this is something the state is going to continue to do, our hope is to make it better.”

Acumen was audibly incensed during a phone call with Utah News Dispatch after the committee meeting. He called Utah Republican Party Chairman Rob Axson a “coward” and criticized Utah lawmakers for avoiding the discussion and essentially ignoring concerns from thousands of Utah Republicans who were left frustrated by the Utah GOP’s presidential preference poll.

“Those people — those people — got shafted today,” Acumen said. “That makes me sick.”

Axson, who said he and other Utah Republican Party officials had encouraged lawmakers both in August and this week to pull the discussion off their agenda, applauded the move, saying lawmakers recognized “this was not the appropriate venue or jurisdiction for this conversation.”

“I commend them for recognizing the agenda item for being prejudicial and biased as well as not being the appropriate venue for the conversation,” Axson told Utah News Dispatch.

Axson said the party’s decision on whether to hold a presidential primary or to hold a presidential preference poll is a “private process.”

“We are private organizations, and we both … proceeded with our nomination process the way that we saw fit in accordance with what our party rules and what state law avails us,” Axson said.

That’s where he and Acumen fundamentally disagree. Acumen said the Utah Republican Party is still “operating under the delusion that they are a private organization.” He pointed to a 1944 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that held states must make voting in primary elections equally accessible to voters of all racial backgounds, even if they don’t manage the election process themselves.

“No, you’re not a private organization. You’re a semi-public organization when you take part in the election of public officials. You are an agency of the state. And the state has not only a right, but a responsibility to make sure your elections are free and fair,” Acumen said.

Acumen said even under the “best case scenario,” there’s no way the Utah GOP could accommodate all Utah Republican voters in its caucus system because there simply aren’t enough classrooms to accommodate all of them. Caucus meetings are typically held in the evenings in public school buildings.

The divides and animosity between Axson and Acumen were on full display in Utah News Dispatch’s conversations with each of them.

When asked how the discussion would be “prejudicial and biased,” Axson referred to Acumen’s report and said it came from a “known antagonist of the Republican Party.”

At that, Acumen fumed, saying he’s been a staunch member of the Republican Party since 1989. He said he’s not an “antagonist.” Rather, he said, “I think the caucus system is communism” that disenfranchises voters. He criticized Utah Republican Party leaders for their love of the caucus system, which he called a “cultural artifact of Utah” that is supported by people who are “more loyal to the caucus system than they are to conservative principles.”

“Look, the party today is obsessed with the caucus. It is a cult,” he said. “It is not conservatism.”

Will the Utah Republican Party listen, look for ways to improve?

What about the issue at hand and the opportunity that was missed on Wednesday — to discuss solutions to problems that frustrated Republican voters during Super Tuesday?

Pressed on this, Axson acknowledged that 13 of the Utah GOP’s caucus locations saw “substantial problems,” and there were “a number of other locations that had room for improvement.”

“We’ve been willing to listen to those recommendations and ideas from inside and outside of the party,” he said. “We have to be willing to learn from what goes well as much as we learn from what doesn’t go well, and we’ve done that and we will continue to do well.”

However, Axson said Acumen “continues to gin up the same argument, the same fire, and to pour gasoline on it.” He said he has a hard time believing Utah Republicans “are just as upset today as they were on March 5, especially considering by Super Tuesday the election of Donald Trump to receive the nomination was already decided.”

Axson said that’s one reason why there was lower turnout — the race was practically already decided.

“But to somebody who was upset then for whatever reason, we welcomed their feedback and I would welcome it still today,” Axson said. “But if they’re still as upset right now about that very issue, there’s something else afoot.”

Asked, however, about whether he’ll listen to the Disability Law Center’s findings and recommendations, Axson said their report focused on “public buildings.”

“I would encourage them to reach out to the appropriate avenue of having those addressed, which would be local school districts and the state school board,” he said. “If there are deficiencies in ADA compliance with the physicality of buildings, that’s not the Republican Party who was merely a private organization renting time in the facilities.”

As far as ADA accommodation, Axson said the Utah GOP is “fully committed to being ADA compliant, and that includes providing accommodations and assistance to anybody that has specific needs that contact us, and we did that in the lead up to caucus and the lead up to convention.”

Utah News Dispatch is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Utah News Dispatch maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor McKenzie Romero for questions: info@utahnewsdispatch.com. Follow Utah News Dispatch on Facebook and X.