PRESS RELEASE

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

November 19, 2024

Phil Lyman Files Motion for Expedited Consideration with SCOTUS

SALT LAKE CITY — Utah Republican convention winner Phil Lyman, who received the most write-in votes in a statewide race in U.S. history, has filed a motion for expedited consideration with the United States Supreme Court. Lyman’s petition for a writ of certiorari was docketed on November 12, 2024 with a response due December 12, 2024. Lyman argues that the “case holds significant public importance, warranting deviation from the ordinary schedule. The petition seeks clarification on the authority of a state to require a candidate to participate in a direct primary election despite the candidate having received the nomination from a political party through its convention process.”

Lyman won Utah’s Republican convention with 67.54% of the delegate vote in April of 2024, emerging as the party’s sole nominee. Spencer Cox failed to meet the minimum 40% required by the Utah GOP, making him the first incumbent governor to fail to meet this minimum threshold; Cox then sought to continue his candidacy by using the signatures he had previously collected via a nomination petition. Cox has been plagued by ongoing allegations that he did not gather sufficient signatures, culminating in a legislative audit that showed he likely did not meet the requirement of 28,000 valid signatures after a statistical analysis of 1,000 signatures. Cox’s running mate, Lieutenant Governor Deidre Henderson, who oversees all elections in Utah including her own, has also been the subject of ongoing scrutiny for her lack of transparency as she refuses to respond to GRAMA (FOIA) requests for election-related documents, including the nomination petition in question, the cast vote records from the primary election, voter rolls, and other similar documents.

In his SCOTUS case, however, Lyman argues that the nomination petition is a moot point because he, as the sole convention nominee, should have been listed as the Republican candidate on the general election ballot per previous litigation surrounding Senate Bill 54 (SB 54).

“It is ironic that, at the same time that we are arguing that his signatures are irrelevant to his qualifying for the ballot, the legislative audit finds that he didn’t even have enough valid signatures anyway,” Lyman said. “We understand that the Utah political establishment wants us to go away. We will not. Spencer Cox was an illegitimate candidate and if re-inaugurated, would be an illegitimate governor. Furthermore, the utter lack of transparency on the part of the Lt Governor on matters surrounding her own race, and placing her own name on the ballot, is unacceptable. We are asking the U.S. Supreme Court to weigh in on this important matter in an expedited fashion because Utah deserves answers, quickly.”

Lyman campaigned as a write-in candidate for the general election and has thus far received over 197,000 votes despite not being on the ballot, the most by a write-in candidate in a non-presidential race in U.S. history. He beat the previous record of South Carolina Senator Strom Thurmond, set in 1954, by over 50,000 votes.

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