Training for New primary election rules

By PHIL FAUVER staff writer

The Lieutenant Governor’s Office sent Justin Lee and Spencer Hadley to all Utah Counties to explain Utah’s New Primary Election process rules. The following is a summary of the new rules that will allow candidates to appear on the primary election ballot in 2016.
The County Clerks from Carbon and Emery counties were in attendance at the Senior Citizens Center in Price to receive these new instructions. Party political leaders also were in attendance.
The new rules show how candidates for political office may choose whether to gather signatures or go to a political party convention to get their name on the Primary Election Ballot.
Qualified Political Party candidates may choose to gather signatures and or go through the party convention process or the candidate may do both to be on the primary election ballot. The current Qualified Political Parties are as follows: Constitution Party, Democratic Party, Independent American Party, Libertarian Party and Republican Party.
First a QPP candidate submits a notice of intent to gather signatures for a political office January 4, 2016 and may gather signatures until March 17, 2016. The candidate then declares his or her candidacy for the political office desired between March 11 and March 17, 2016. The filing officer will give each candidate intending to gather signatures a packet of forms for collecting signatures.
A candidate may begin gathering signatures after January 4 as soon as the filing officer has provided him or her the necessary forms. Next the candidate submits the required signatures to the filing officer two weeks prior to a candidate’s political party convention.
The candidate signature requirements for the various offices are as follows: Statewide Office (Governor, US Senate) 28,000 signatures, House of Representatives 7,000, Utah State Senate 2000, Utah State House of Representatives 1000 and County Offices 3 percent of voters permitted to vote in the party’s primary election who live in the same district or area.
Who can sign a candidate’s petition for office? Residents of the district may sign, persons allowed to vote in the political party’s primary election may sign, the signer must be registered to vote in Utah and voters can only sign for one candidate per race.
All QPP parties must allow unaffiliated voters to participate in their primary election. This does not apply to the Republican Party or the Constitution Party.
The Lieutenant Governor will serve as the filing officer for federal, state and multi-county legislative races. The County Clerk will serve as the filing officer for single county legislative races.
The last day to submit a signature petition packet is 14 days before your political party convention. Petition packets will be verified in the order in which they are submitted.
The number of qualified signatures submitted for verification must meet or exceed the required number of signatures. Signatures that exceed the required number of signatures will not be counted. The election officer will certify whether each name is that of a registered voter who is qualified to sign the candidate’s petition.
The filing officer will notify the candidate if he or she qualifies for the primary election ballot. The status of a candidate’s petition verification will be on line at elections.Utah.gov.