Prop. 4 repeal push scrambling for signatures
More than 2/3 of signers are Republicans
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Clock’s ticking: 30 days remain for the group pushing to put a repeal of Utah’s anti-gerrymandering law (Prop. 4) on the 2026 ballot. As of Thursday morning, Jan. 15, organizers had submitted just under one-third of the 140,748 signatures due by Feb. 14.
Prop. 4, approved by voters in 2018, created an independent redistricting commission and banned partisan gerrymandering. The GOP-controlled Legislature repealed it in 2020 before it could be implemented. After a coalition of good-government groups and citizens filed suit, a judge ruled lawmakers acted unconstitutionally when they repealed Prop. 4. She reinstated the law and threw out the congressional map approved by lawmakers in 2021.
⏰ Tick Tock
5 days - Start of the 2026 Utah Legislature (1/20/2026)
30 days - Signature deadline for ballot initiative seeking to repeal Prop. 4 (2/14/2026)
53 days - First day congressional candidates can file to run for the 2026 election. (3/9/2026)
61 days - Neighborhood caucus night. (3/17/2026)
86 days - Utah Forward Party nominating convention (4/11/2026)
100 days - Utah State Republican and Democratic State Party nominating conventions (4/25/2026)
159 days - Utah's 2026 primary election (6/23/2026)
292 days - 2026 midterm elections (11/3/2026)
1,027 days - 2028 presidential election (11/7/2028)
Utahns for Representative Government (UFRG) is organizing the current signature drive to put the repeal on the 2026 ballot.
To qualify, organizers must also collect signatures equal to 8% of active voters in at least 26 of the state’s 29 Senate districts. So far, they haven't cleared the bar in any. They're above 70% of the requirement in just one district - SD27, and above 50% in another four.
They’re below 50% of the requirement in 23 districts, with 9 of those below 20%.
Unsurprisingly, most signers so far are Republicans.
Using voter data from the firm L2, Utah Political Watch matched more than 35,000 petition signers to the statewide voter file. Roughly 7,000 could not be matched because their information is not available publicly or was incomplete.
Two out of every three voters who have added their signature are registered Republicans. About 20% are unaffiliated. Just over 7% are Democrats.
Utah GOP chair Rob Axson, who is heading up UFRG, told a far-right group earlier in January that Prop. 4 “usurps” Utah’s form of government by letting an unelected body draw maps—and that undoing it is literally a matter of divine importance.
“I believe that our system of government has benefited this country and this state in ways that it is now up to us to protect. It’s something that I believe that a higher power, our Heavenly Father, expects us fight for. He expects us to defend this because this is the system that has allowed the greatest amount of good to come into the world. We have to take seriously what is here before us,” Axson said.
UFRG’s signature effort is wholly funded by an out-of state dark money group that is part of President Donald Trump’s political network. Securing American Greatness, a 501(c)(4) nonprofit organization that can raise unlimited amounts of money without disclosing donors, has donated $4.35 million to the repeal campaign.
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