Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson asked Utahns to “doubt the doubters,” commit to accepting the election results and be responsible for their ballots ahead of the Nov. 5 election in a speech at the University of Utah’s Hinckley Institute of Politics on Thursday morning.
The speech comes two weeks after the FBI intercepted a “suspicious” letter containing white powder addressed to her office.
“Whether the enclosed substance is toxic or not, this letter was sent with a malicious intent to harm not me or my staff, but you, the voters,” Henderson said. “Attacks on our elections and the people who run them are attacks on the political institutions that exist to protect our liberty and free government.”
Henderson told a room of students, reporters and election officials that they would hear the vote has been rigged in the coming weeks, voting by mail is less secure than in-person voting and counting ballots by hand is more accurate than a machine.
“Both claims are demonstrably false,” she said.
Henderson urged voters to take three specific actions ahead of Nov. 5.
“Doubt the doubters,” she said. “Questions and concerns are welcome, but if someone is spreading salacious rumors that shake your confidence in our elections, stop and ask yourself what their motivation could be.”
She asked voters to do this before doubting the entire election system and to not participate in undermining public trust in elections by spreading rumors or unfounded accusations.
Henderson’s second request of Utahns is that they “commit today to accept the results of the election no matter what they are.”
“Every race has a winner and loser,” she said. “You will not like every outcome.”
Lastly, she asked voters to update their registration, reminding people that county clerks would send out ballots on Oct. 15.
“Take your vote into your own hands,” Henderson said. “You are ultimately responsible for your own ballot.”
Henderson said that after the election, Utahns might hear rumors of voting irregularities and be frustrated by having to wait longer to hear the results, but it takes time for all the ballots to be counted, and this is all part of the process.
“Any system run by tens of thousands of individuals across thousands of decentralized voting districts throughout the country will experience human error. It happens every time, it always will,” Henderson said. “But please, please extend some grace to your friends and neighbors in Utah who run our elections. They want nothing more than to ensure that your vote counts accurately.”
Elected officials in Utah have been questioning the fairness of the primary elections this year, including Rep. Phil Lyman, who lost the primary to incumbent Republican Gov. Spencer Cox and is now running a write-in campaign.
In early August, Lyman unsuccessfully sued the Utah Republican Party. He asked the Utah Supreme Court to annul the June primary results, remove Cox and Henderson from their positions and make him the Republican candidate for governor.
“Phil Lyman is the only candidate in this state who has tried to steal an election,” Henderson said in a post to X on Aug. 13. “His self-serving political theatrics have cost the state hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars.”
On Thursday morning, Lyman posted to X claiming Cox is an “illegitimate” candidate.
“Spencer Cox is an illegitimate candidate until the names that qualified him for the Primary [sic] ballot undergo a forensic audit by an unbiased, third party,” his post read.
Henderson told reporters that the issue of certifying or accepting election results has “snowballed” in the last several years, and she worries it’s reached a “tipping point.”
“I’ve worried that it’s become normal to believe lies and abnormal to believe truth,” she said. “We have to normalize truth again.”
v.hudson@dailyutahchronicle.com
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