I suppose I should be careful about what I say here.
But it’s difficult to overstate my disappointment in the group of die-hard, anti-SB54 Republican Party so-called leaders who have now filed a citizen initiative petition against the Count My Vote folks’ initiative.
Of course, the caucus/delegate/convention advocates can vigorously fight for their cause.
But they are, to put it bluntly, attempting a cynical, deceitful route of purposely trying to confuse voters.
First, they take as their official name Keep My Voice – very close to the pro-SB54 petition backers’ Count My Vote – KMV to CMV.
Secondly, they are using a logo that looks much like the Count My Vote logo.
Keep My Voice copies the Utah state outline, with a big check mark, like the several years old Count My Vote logo.
Keep My Voice’s only attempt here is to subterfuge the title and look of Count My Vote – which is now running its second effort to get the candidate dual-route process before voters in this fall’s election.
Two of the Keep My Voice official KMV application-signatories I know personally, Chris Herrod and Jonathan Johnson.
And I expected more from them – as my previous interactions with them have shown them to be good, honorable men.
Both men took the caucus/delegate/convention route in their recent failed attempts to win the Republican Party’s nomination in the 3rd Congressional District special election last summer and the 2016 governor’s race, respectively.
Herrod was beaten in last August’s primary election by now-Rep. John Curtis, who got on the primary ballot via the signature route.
Likewise, in 2016 Johnson finished ahead of GOP Gov. Gary Herbert in the state convention. He didn’t get the 60 percent required to eliminate Herbert in the convention.
But Herbert (like Curtis) took BOTH the signature and convention routes allowed under SB54.
In the June 2016 primary, Herbert slaughtered Johnson, really crushing him.
Curtis’ defeat of Herrod was not as overwhelming, as there was another signature candidate on the August 2017, GOP primary ballot, Tanner Ainge.
But you see the motivation of both Herrod and Johnson: They either won the delegate convention or came out ahead in the convention, only to be rejected by rank-and-file GOP voters.
It is reasonably clear that the heavy-hitters backing Count My Vote will get the required 113,000 registered voters’ signatures needed to make the 2018 November ballot.
Whether the Keep My Voice can get the 113,000 signatures remains to be seen – but both Johnson (via his Overstock.com executive position) and another KMV backer, Dave Bateman (head of Entrata) are multimillionaires who can self-fund a paid petition gathering effort.
So, we may well see both Count My Vote (CMV) and Keep My Voice (KMV) on the November ballot.
Unless the Count My Vote folks – which included former GOP Gov. Mike Leavitt and Utah Jazz owner Gail Miller – change their petition’s name and logo, their campaign effort this summer and fall could be confused with the Keep My Voice (KMV) effort.
And when voters get confused, they generally tend to vote no on their ballots.
Which, of course, is exactly what KMV wants – a no vote on Count My Vote.
Poll after poll by UtahPolicy.com’s pollster, Dan Jones & Associates, finds good support for Count My Vote.
Utah citizens – and this makes sense – want to vote for themselves in party primaries (paid for by their own tax dollars) on who the ultimate party nominee will be.
In very red Utah, many – if not most – of elections are decided when the GOP nominee is determined.
The final election between the Republican and Democratic candidates is basically understood – the Democrat doesn’t really have a chance in a gubernatorial or U.S. Senate race, and three out of four U.S House elections see the Democratic challenger getting killed in the general election.
Likewise, many Utah legislative races are very lopsided – with the GOP candidate winning easily, even if he or she has a Democratic challenger, which in many cases they don’t.
Why should a rank-and-file Republican voter have to go to a March caucus meeting, where county and state delegates are elected, and then those delegates vote in a secret ballot in convention vote to determine who the GOP nominee is?
Where is the accountability there?
The registered GOP voter is certainly able to make that nomination decision in a party primary election.
But I digress.
My complaint here is that Herrod, Johnson et al. are purposely trying to confuse voters by taking the name Keep My Voice (which is anything but, because no one is losing anything in SB54) with Count My Vote.
Tired of cynical infighting inside of the Utah Republican Party and politicians telling you half-truths?
Meet Keep My Voice.
