County Clerk threatens to toss out 21 binders of petition signatures

Summit County residents sign the Dakota Pacific referendum at The Market in Park City on January 21, 2025. Photo: TownLift

County clerk set to reject almost 2,000 signatures while sponsors maintain the validity of every packet and prepare to file a formal injunction.

PARK CITY, Utah – Referendum sponsors were notified Wednesday, Feb. 19 by County Clerk, Eve Furse, that 21 of 25 recently submitted packets containing the signatures of thousands of Summit County voters may be thrown out due to what the county said is a technicality involving how the packets were allegedly bound together.

With 11 days of the signature-gathering window left, sponsors of the referendum announced Thursday that they will be filing a formal injunction against the county’s claims that the packets are invalid.

Utah Code, Furse explained, requires the sponsors to ensure that the signature pages are bound as part of a packet that a person can open to sign, as explained in section 20A-7-604.

“The binding must occur prior to the signing,” Furse wrote. “If you have evidence that would show the packets had been bound prior to their being
signed, we would be happy to consider that, and if persuaded, verify those packets.”

Furse said the signatures will not be counted unless sponsors can prove proper binding of the packets.

Alternatively, the county suggested, sponsors could contact all of the people who signed and re-obtain signatures so that they could be counted.

“You could recontact them and have them sign in a bound packet. We would not consider those individuals as having signed the petition twice,” Furse’s email said.

Along with the notice, Furse included photographs published by the Park Record, KPCW and TownLift showing what the county said was evidence that protocol was not followed.

“Given the pictures in the coverage from the press, showing that signature sheets had been separated from packets, and then seeing that 21 of the packets had hole punched across the top, which the ones in the photos seem to have as well, I couldn’t figure out how to count those, to ensure that they had been circulated in a way as required by the law,” Furse told TownLift.

Sponsors of the referendum to file injunction

On Thursday, the seven sponsors of the referendum said they would be filing a formal injunction against the claims that the binders were not presented correctly.

“We are pursuing a formal injunction which will be filed timely fashion,” an email sent to Furse and Summit County Manager Shayne Scott said.

The sponsors said that Section 20A-7-604.5 makes clear the duties of the clerk, which include confirming packets are received in timely fashion, confirming and counting signatures, checking to see attestation pages are signed by registered Summit County voters, and forwarding signatures on to the Lieutenant Governor’s office.

“Using circumstantial ‘evidence’ gleaned from social media and the press to challenge the validity of packets is not within the duties of the clerk as stipulated by the code,” referendum sponsors said.