Utah’s Prop. 4 repeal is hanging by a thread. A steady drip of signature removals has the Republican-led effort to undo the state’s voter-approved anti-gerrymandering law on the edge of missing November’s ballot.
Utahns for Representative Government (UFRG) wants voters to repeal Prop. 4, the 2018 ballot initiative that created an independent redistricting commission and outlawed partisan gerrymandering. To qualify the repeal for the ballot, organizers had to collect signatures equal to 8% of active voters statewide and also reach that 8% target in 26 of Utah’s 29 Senate districts.
Utah also lets voters who signed a petition remove their signature within a specified window. Opponents of the repeal effort have been taking advantage of that window, contacting signers and urging them to rescind their signatures.
As of Thursday morning, updated totals show another 118 signatures removed in Senate District 15, shrinking the cushion to a paper-thin 114 above the threshold. One more day like this, and SD15 fails, taking the repeal’s ballot hopes with it.
Other districts are also eroding, but not quite as rapidly:
- SD12: 460 surplus signatures (12 removals today)
- SD17: 577 surplus signatures (33 removals today)
- SD10: 590 surplus signatures (6 removals today)
- SD8: 652 surplus signatures (8 removals today)
In 2018, the Count My Vote initiative, which sought to shift Utah’s elections from the caucus/convention system for nominating candidates to a direct primary election, initially submitted more than 132,000 signatures—enough to qualify the measure for the ballot. The initiative was knocked off the ballot after opponents peeled off just enough names in two Senate districts. The Utah Supreme Court later upheld the state’s removal process.
Voters have 45 days from when their name is posted online to pull their signature off a petition. In SD15 alone, nearly 3,400 names are still within that window—about 29 times the size of the district’s current 114-signature surplus.
