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Iron County approves canvas of June 23 Republican primary despite ballot rejections tied to HB 300 rollout
Summary
At a special Iron County Commission canvass meeting, election officials reported a 37.2% turnout and 7,943 ballots counted, described patterns of ballot rejections and post-deadline returns linked to HB 300 implementation, and the commission approved the official canvas by voice vote.
The Iron County Commission met in a special canvass session to certify results from the June 23, 2026 Republican primary and approved the official canvas by voice vote.
John, an elected administrator who presented the canvass, said turnout was 37.2 percent with 21,379 active voters and a total of 7,943 ballots counted. "We counted a total of 7,943 ballots," he said, and added that 7,648 were mail ballots, 13 were in-person early ballots, 267 were election-day ballots and 13 provisional ballots were counted.
John told the commission there were 7,945 vote histories—two more than ballots counted—because staff received two envelopes without ballots and one voting-method survey. He also said Iron County participated in a pilot under HB 300 from the 2025 legislative session that asks voters their preferred voting method and that roughly 97 percent of surveyed voters were asked to vote by mail.
The presenter detailed ballot challenges and rejections. "There were 78 total challenged curable ballots, 51 rejected ballots that were curable but not cured," John said, listing 18 envelopes with signatures that did not match, three unsigned envelopes and about 30 ballots challenged for other curable reasons. He said many problems stemmed from confusion over HB 300’s requirement to provide the last four digits of a Social Security number or driver's license number; older voters sometimes provided different four-digit combinations.
Officials reported 122 rejected nonprovisional ballots, 121 of which arrived after the clerk had to be in possession of the ballot under the updated rule. John described one case in which a voter’s overnight delivery arrived after 8 p.m. on election night and could not be counted. "We no longer go by the postmark, but it has to be in the clerk's possession," he said.
John also read selected race totals: in the multi-county House 3 race Celeste Malloy received 5,366 votes and Phil Lyman 2,499; for State School Board District 14 Linda Hanks received 4,052 votes and Nicole Beecher Isom 3,068; in County Commissioner A the totals reported were about 3,742 for Bruce McDonald and 4,013 for Mike Blake.
When asked why some voters did not receive a ballot, John said most were registered with a different party or unaffiliated; the Republican Party held a closed primary so non-Republicans do not receive Republican primary ballots. He added that he had testified in a Senate hearing that HB 300 "actually caused votes to not be counted," while noting staff have seen some positive aspects of the in-hand/possession rule despite implementation challenges.
The chair asked for a motion to approve the canvass. A commission member moved to approve "the canvas of the 06/23/2026 Republican primary election," John seconded, and the chair called a voice vote. Members answered "Aye," and the chair closed the meeting after noting there were no other agenda items.
The commission recorded no operational anomalies beyond the ballot rejections and deadline/possession issues described in the presentation. The canvass stands approved; staff and the commission did not announce further remedial actions during the session.
