On October 10, the Utah Supreme Court released its opinion in Count my Vote v Cox, 2019-UT-60. By 6-1, the Court upheld a severe ballot access barrier for statewide initiatives. The law permits opponents of an initiative to have 30 days after the petition deadline to try to persuade signers to remove their names. During that 30 days, the proponents of the initiative cannot collect any more signatures.

An organized campaign to defeat an initiative may not need to persuade many signers to withdraw their signatures. The law also requires that a statewide initiative have the signatures of 10% (of the last presidential vote) in 26 of the state’s 29 State Senate districts. So the opponents of the initiative only need to target a handful of legislative districts to disqualify an initiative. Even though the petition may easily have the signatures of 10% of the state’s last presidential vote, it can be disqualified if it meets the 10% standard in only 25 of the State Senate districts, instead of 26. Here is the opinion. The particular initiative that was disqualified would have ended the ability of parties to use party meetings in the candidate qualification process. Instead the initiative would have simply let party primaries choose party nominees.