Appeal focuses on whether Governor Cox's COVID orders and refusal to relax in-person signature rules violated sponsors' ballot rights

Salt Lake City —The Utah Supreme Court considered an as-applied constitutional claim in Haney v. Tooele County alleging that Governor Gary R. Cox's pandemic-era actions and his refusal to suspend in-person signature requirements during a COVID spike severely burdened sponsors' ballot access and freedom of association.

Appellant counsel Janet Conway told the court sponsors were hampered while gathering signatures during a COVID surge and that the governor's public pleas to avoid contact, combined with his refusal to allow electronic signature gathering, "rendered the statute unconstitutional as applied under the extreme circumstances presented by the COVID pandemic." Conway said sponsors had obtained well over the lower 9.5% threshold but fell 763 signatures short of the 16% threshold the county applied.

Andrew Dimock, arguing for Governor Cox, urged the court to affirm the district…