Phil Lyman, former San Juan County commissioner and a candidate who ran under the Lyman for Utah banner, said a Third District judge granted a motion to dismiss in a legal challenge over access to nominating-petition signatures and the implementation of SB 54.

Lyman made the remarks on a livestream, describing the court’s ruling as a procedural dismissal that speeds the litigation to an appellate level. He said the lieutenant governor’s office moved to dismiss the case and Judge Steven Nelson of the Third District Court granted that motion.

The dispute centers on whether candidates and other parties have a statutory right to see the private signature lists that accompany nominating petitions. Lyman said the campaign asked to review Spencer Cox’s nominating-petition packets and was denied access; the team sought those records in court and challenged the secretary of state/lieutenant governor office’s handling of them. “They said, this document’s protected,” Lyman said of election officials, “and then we say, why? The code says except candidates can view this information.”

Why it matters: Lyman and other speakers on the livestream framed the records fight as integral to challenges over SB 54, the 2021–2023 state law that altered how primary ballots can be accessed by candidates who collect signatures. Lyman said SB 54 changed the character of candidate selection in Utah by enabling candidates who bypass convention vetting to qualify for primaries. He cited Lopez Torres v. New York State Board of Elections as precedent on associational rights and said the question now before higher courts is whether a political party’s internal nominating process is protected from state interference.

Details Lyman gave about the petition process and evidence: he said Cox’s campaign submitted 717 packets on Feb. 20, and the total in those packets added up to roughly 27,000 signatures — short of the 28,000 total the campaign publicly claimed on that date, according to Lyman’s recounting. Lyman also said clerks centralized verification in Davis County and that local offices required temporary staff and machines to process roughly 300,000 signature records after SB 54 implementation. Those numbers and the campaign’s characterization of the packet counts were presented by Lyman as evidence that signatures were not handled consistently and that procedural shortcuts benefited some candidates.

Court posture and next steps: Lyman said the dismissal in Third District “speeds up the whole process” because it moves the dispute toward appeal; he said his team intends to pursue the matter through appellate courts and to press the constitutional right-of-association argument the U.S. Supreme Court addressed in Lopez Torres. He described several possible outcomes from higher courts, including a remand to lower courts to apply legal standards or an order that would treat the primary runoff as invalid if a court finds the nominating process was improperly applied.

Public reaction and campaign response: Lyman urged supporters to follow the campaign’s social channels and said the campaign will continue to publish videos and updates; he also asked for financial contributions to cover legal costs, directing listeners to Lyman for Utah. He framed the litigation as part of a broader push to restore what he called “convention” accountability inside the Utah Republican Party and to challenge what he described as the effects of SB 54 on local representation.

What Lyman and others urged listeners to do: stay engaged in precinct and caucus organizations, run for precinct and county party offices, and preserve local nomination processes rather than cede them to signature-driven primaries. He also recommended decentralizing election administration as a policy goal, such as voting in neighborhood precincts and moving election oversight to an independently elected office rather than leaving it with the lieutenant governor.

The livestream included discussion of broader political themes (insurance and wildfires, education policy, and international organizations) but the most actionable items centered on the petition-records dispute, the Third District dismissal and the impending appellate steps. Lyman said any public announcement from higher courts would be shared on the campaign’s X, Instagram and YouTube channels.

Ending: The case remains active on appeal. Lyman told viewers his team expects possible rulings quickly from appellate benches and encouraged supporters to monitor the campaign’s social accounts for court bulletins and filings.