Clean Elections for Utah

Page last updated: Friday, 02-Oct-2026 23:35:21 EDT

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2024 General Election

The Tale of the Two Lymans
(Actually ... Three)

After the 2024 gubernatorial primary, Phil Lyman decided to run as a write-in candidate for governor in the November election. Phil and his running mate Natalie Clawson filed on August 19. The filing deadline to run as a write-in candidate for the November election was Tuesday, September 3, at 5 PM. That would include anyone running for governor or lieutenant governor.

There was an application dated September 3 by a man named Richard Kennedy Lyman, to run as a write-in. However, there is an email dated September 5 3:05 PM from the Lieutenant Governor Deidre Henderson to Richard Lyman reminding him that he had not formally declared a lieutenant governor. His running mate was Carol Lyman - his mother.

Not ALL paperwork was filed by the deadline. An email dated September 5 from the Lieutenant Governor to Richard Lyman reminded him that he has to submit a letter that Carol Lyman was his running mate. But Carol Lyman's declaration of candidacy is dated September 3.

Phil Lyman’s campaign was contacted by a whistleblower who stated he worked with Richard Lyman. The whistleblower told the campaign that Richard had been talking at work about how he had been contacted and asked to run as a write-in governor. The whistleblower knew that Richard recruited his mother, Carol Lyman, to be his running mate. They were apparently offered $$$ and a steak dinner to do so.

The 2024 governor ballot looked something like this. Notice the space for write-in candidates.

When tallying ballots, the election clerk only accepts valid write-ins – candidates who filed to run, and written in correctly. If there is anything ambiguous about the write-in, the clerk will reject it.

Ballots that mark write-in candidates go into an adjudication. The clerk programs an adjudication menu for the ballot. The ballot is put up on a screen; human adjudicators determine your intent. If your choice is unambiguous and valid, your ballot is marked with a choice from the adjudication menu and accepted. If your choice is not valid or ambiguous, your ballot is marked as rejected for that race.

With multiple Lymans in the race, imagine what can happen if a vote’s intent is not immediately obvious.

The Phil Lyman campaign sued. As part of the settlement, Richard and Carol Lyman withdrew from the race, and all Lyman write-ins were accepted. Ambiguous ballots started going into quarantine while the Lieutenant Governor's office processed the withdrawal. Ballots that were outright rejected up to this development were never reviewed and awarded to Phil, though the quarantined ballots were reviewed and went to the Phil Lyman campaign.

Despite the obstacles thrown in his way, Phil Lyman got over 200,000 write-in votes in November of 2024 – an impressive amount by shear raw number. It was over 13.5% of the total gubernatorial vote – more than all the other write-ins and third parties combined (at just over 5%.)