The bid to repeal Utah’s voter-approved anti-gerrymandering law (Prop. 4) is sputtering: with less than a month until the Feb. 14 deadline, signature verification is falling further behind.

As of Friday morning, Utahns for Representative Government (UFRG), the political-issue committee backing the ballot initiative, has collected just over a third of the 140,748 signatures needed statewide to qualify for the 2026 ballot.

Backers also must collect signatures from 8% of voters in 26 of Utah’s 29 state Senate districts. They haven’t cleared that bar in a single district, and only six are even above 50% of the requirement:

  • SD27 - 84.2%
  • SD25 - 64.35%
  • SD26 - 61.22%
  • SD29 - 60%
  • SD28 - 55.23%
  • SD2 - 52.24%

In ten other districts, they’re below 20% of the goal, with most of those in Salt Lake and Davis Counties. The furthest behind is SD7, represented by Senate President Stuart Adams.

As of Thursday, organizers needed at least 3,175 signatures per day to stay on pace; Friday’s shortfall of 1,970 bumps the daily target to 3,243 just to reach the minimum statewide threshold.

The Utah Republican Party and UFRG are bringing in conservative activist Scott Pressler for a trio of events this weekend to juice signatures.

Pressler, who has a massive social media following, is best known for GOP voter registration and get-out-the-vote efforts. He has faced criticism over ties to anti-Muslim groups, election denialism and for amplifying debunked conspiracy theories, including QAnon.