Gubernatorial write-in candidate Phil Lyman caused a stir earlier this month when he announced that he was taking his quest to kick Republican Spencer Cox off the ballot to the United States Supreme Court.
Not so fast.
During a call with campaign volunteers on Monday night, Lyman said the Supreme Court did not accept the filing because of an error. Because of that, the 70 copies of the 700-page brief he submitted were returned.
"For whatever reason, they said there were a couple of things missing in the very first book, so they sent back everything to me. It showed up at my CPA office today," Lyman said.
Lyman said that error has been corrected and they are resubmitting their filing to the high court.
"We're getting that little correction made, repackaging it, sending it all back to them," Lyman explained.
Because of the delay, Lyman must scramble to get his appeal heard before Election Day. The Justices are scheduled to meet in conference on Friday to discuss which petitions they will hear. The order list from that conference will be released on Monday. If Lyman's petition is not received in time for this Friday's conference, it will likely have to wait until the conference scheduled for Nov. 8 or later.
Attendees were eager to hear more from Lyman about his Supreme Court gambit and what he's hoping to accomplish.
"I'd love to see it go back to the Utah Supreme Court and maybe stop the election or order a new election," Lyman said.
Lyman did not respond to questions from Utah Political Watch.
Lyman claims Utah's election machines are rigged
Lyman is having trouble coming to grips with his loss to Spencer Cox in the GOP primary election. During Monday's call, he made an outrageous claim that the machines that counted votes were pre-programmed to give Cox a win.
"These people who support Spencer Cox are saying I lost by 38,000 votes. No, we didn't. They preloaded, I think, 40,000 votes into that election, and I know they can do it. I know they have done it in the past," Lyman said.
Lyman could only say that the vibes felt off when asked to elaborate.
"That initial drop of ballots, there's no meaningful time stamps on the first drop. They drop as soon as the polls close. When I say preloaded, I mean in that first batch of votes, there were 40,000 votes that were not real. They were fake votes that were added either electronically or through ballots being run through machines," Lyman said.
He also repeated a repeatedly debunked conspiracy theory about voting machine company Smartmatic.
"The Smartmatic software was created to steal elections. No question about that. If you look into the history, that's what this software was designed to do," Lyman said.
In the aftermath of the 2020 election, Donald Trump's allies made bogus claims that the Florida-based company's technology switched votes. The company has settled defamation lawsuits against right-wing media outlets that amplified those unfounded allegations. In April, far-right One America News Network agreed to a confidential settlement with the company. In September, the company and Newsmax settled for an undisclosed sum.
The company's defamation suit against Fox News is still pending.
Smartmatic did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
This is not the first time Lyman has made spurious claims about problems with voting machines. During the 2022 Republican U.S. Senate primary election, Lyman claimed voting machines switched votes from incumbent Mike Lee to one of his challengers. Lyman never provided proof to back up that claim.
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