The Utah Republican Party held its 2024 state convention at the Salt Palace Convention Center on Saturday to nominate its slate of candidates for the election cycle this fall in an event marred by technical problems and long delays.
With a count of some 3855 delegates tasked to select the party’s official slate of nominees, this was a huge event, and one of the few places able to handle the logistics of an event this size is the Salt Palace Convention Center in downtown Salt Lake City. Even so, the event was held in a hall at the far end of the event center and was plagued by technical problems that tested the patience of those who had traveled from across the state to perform their patriotic duty. The picture below was taken about halfway from the front of the hall.
2024 Utah Republican Convention Floor
The event was delayed over an hour past its original start time of 10:30 AM due to the long line of delegates waiting to pick up their credentials that allowed them to participate in the voting. The credentialing booth was tucked in the back corner of a separate hall where the candidates for the various offices were meeting with delegates and handing out event swag from their booths. After receiving their credentials, delegates had to receive a special code specific to them from one of only four assistants assigned to this task. It was this bottleneck that accounted for most of the backup in the credentialing line. Some delegates had arrived before the 7:00 AM convention opening and reported that they had stood in line over two hours.
There were a number of multi-county offices to be decided by delegates specific to those races, and they were scheduled to be adjudicated starting at 8:00 AM. Later, after the main event finally got underway at 11:30, delegates complained of not receiving their credentials in time to participate in these multi-county races where some were decided by a handful of votes or might have been decided differently had all the delegates been properly credentialed and able to vote. A number of delegates complained about the new electronic voting system put into place to replace paper ballots in an attempt to streamline and speed up the voting process.
This electronic voting system process began with the convention credentialing officials releasing a special code specific to each round of voting. Delegates had to scan the QR code on their credentials with their personal cell phones to open the voting portal, enter the special code they were issued that morning from the credentialing booth, and enter the special code displayed by the credentialing officials before casting their votes and selecting a Submit button that entered their vote. A test vote was held before official voting began to familiarize the delegates with the process and identify any issues. A significant number of delegates had to visit one of four Help Desk booths to iron out problems they were having with the system, which took several minutes before resolution that further delayed official voting. After these problems were ironed out and several delegates rose to call for a point of order to complain about the system and ask for a return to paper ballots, State GOP Chair Robert Axson finally shut down further complaints to move on with party business.
Once the bugs were worked out, the new electronic voting system, touted by state party leadership as being secure and anonymous, began to work more smoothly, although the length of time for voting rounds seemed excessive and caused the event to drag on. Originally scheduled to end at 6:00 PM, the event finally finished up past 12:30 AM the next morning. That made for one long day for party delegates who had previously complained about the exorbitant cost of food and lodging they had to lay out to be there.
It occurred to me that the credentialing process could have been handled much more efficiently by mail prior to the event. Convention delegates were known to party officials, having been selected weeks before at county caucuses. Party officials could have mailed delegates their credentials and had each delegate present their credentials along with a photo ID prior to entering the convention space. Also, the test vote could have been held online prior to the convention to iron out the technical glitches and allow delegates to participate in the early morning votes. These changes would have made the convention process flow much more smoothly and possibly avoided the long extension to the day. In this age of technology, there is no excuse for technical glitches to be the cause of event delays.
Candidate booths were staged in a separate area next to the convention floor that allowed delegates to access the candidates prior to the event. The picture below shows some of the candidate booths where attendees could meet the candidates and help themselves to candidate swag.
2024 Utah GOP Convention Candidate Area
Senator Mike Lee appeared in the booth of Derek Brown, candidate for Utah Attorney General, to speak on his behalf and offer his endorsement. Several candidates touted endorsements from a number of high-profile political officials with U.S. Senate candidate Trent Staggs claiming the coveted endorsement of President Trump. Staggs went on to win his race against establishment candidates Brad Wilson and John Curtis in a crowded field of sixteen candidates, thus proving the power of Trump’s endorsement to elevate candidates. Brown was eliminated in the first round of voting with both Frank Mylar and Rachel Terry advancing to the ballot as Mylar received 59.76% of the vote falling just short of the 60% needed to become the sole endorsed candidate. Brown will appear on the ballot anyway since he collected signatures.
Utah Senator Mike Lee Endorsing AG Candidate Derek Brown
I arrived around 10:00 AM prepared to experience my first state caucus convention with high expectations and great interest. Utah is one of the few states where a candidate can end up on the ballot without having to spend a small fortune merely through an impressive convention speech and garnering over 60% of the delegate vote. The Utah RINO establishment threw a wrench into this system with the passage of SB54 in the 2014 legislative session that provided candidates with an alternative method of getting onto the ballot. Under this bill, candidates who failed to secure the necessary convention vote could instead gather signatures to ensure they were on the primary ballot. Only those candidates securing the necessary convention votes are identified on the ballot as being endorsed by the party.
Each candidate was granted four minutes to make their case to delegates. While this doesn’t sound like much time, it worked out well since each candidate was forced to focus like a laser on making their case. Some were more polished than others, but that was not necessarily a hindrance as delegates sought to determine which of the candidates was the most dependable and trustworthy.
Governor Spencer Cox was met with a thundering chorus of boos as he took to the stage to make his case for another term. Cox abandoned his original speech to point out several cases where candidates who lost the convention vote had gone on to win the general election, thus implying that he was about to do the same since he had already gathered the required number of signatures to appear on the ballot. Many candidates proudly pointed out that they were convention only, meaning that they had shunned the signature approach to ballot access to signal their support for the caucus approach. To his credit, Cox delivered his speech confidently and with a smile as he rattled off a list of accomplishments for which he took credit despite his lack of strong support for some. The convention went on to select Phil Lyman as the party nominee with over 67% of the vote, so time will tell if Cox joins the list of those whom he mentioned in his speech.
Since I was not a delegate, I threw in the towel around 6:30 PM at the close of voting for the first congressional district. Given the slow pace of the day and the number of offices remaining to be adjudicated, I suspected the convention would drag on for quite some time. My suspicions were confirmed the next day when I learned that the convention didn’t wrap up until after 12:30 AM the next morning. I learned several things from my experience. First, bring some food and water as the convention makes for a long day with few opportunities to grab a bite. Second, bring a book as the long voting rounds resulted in little to do. Third, bring your own comfortable folding lawn chair as the convention seats lost their comfortable allure sooner than one would think from their appearance. I did manage to snag a couple of bottles of water from Phil Lyman’s booth, but one can’t count on that since I didn’t see bottled water at any other booths.
One more thing I experienced was a sense of depression setting in as the day dragged on and candidates revealed troubling details of incumbent opponents such as voting records and campaign contributions. I reminded myself that I was lucky to be in one of the few states that allowed caucus delegates to hear these things before casting their votes to select their candidate of choice to appear on the ballot as the officially endorsed candidate of the Utah Republican Party. I saw passionate delegates, polished political candidates, and quite a few honest, hardworking regular Utah citizens putting themselves on the line to step up and do their part to save the country that they love. That’s what this country was founded upon, and no one should be depressed about that. In fact, we need a lot more people just like them.
Independent Conservative 