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SALT LAKE CITY — With less than 50 days to go before the Republican primary election for Utah's 2nd Congressional seat, a GOP candidate who lost to Celeste Maloy has filed a lawsuit against her, saying she should be disqualified from the ballot due to her inactive voter registration at the time she filed as a candidate.
Quin Denning, an entrepreneur who withdrew after garnering less than 2% of votes in the first round of voting in last month's Republican special convention, alleges that Maloy — the eventual winner at the convention — is ineligible to run as a Republican and accuses Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson of breaking state law by allowing Maloy on the ballot.
Denning filed the suit against Henderson and Maloy on Tuesday in Utah's 3rd District Court, asking a judge for a preliminary injunction to keep Maloy off of this year's ballot.
The lawsuit is not personal toward Maloy as a candidate, he told KSL.com, but rather about "election transparency and integrity."
Maloy downplayed the lawsuit as a "distraction," and the two other candidates still in the Republican primary said they are focused on their own campaigns.
"This lawsuit is nothing more than a distraction," Maloy said in a statement. "It's a distraction from facts my opponents would rather forget: I won resoundingly at the state convention, and the Republican State Party made its decision. Utahns deserve a representative who's focused on doing the work — not playing political games and trying to rewrite history — so that's exactly what I intend to do.
"I look forward to continuing my work with constituents on the campaign trail who so clearly believe in my mission to build a stronger, freer future for our nation," she said.
"I'm not going to comment on pending litigation," Henderson said through a spokesman.
What the lawsuit says
Denning's suit largely echoes complaints raised by party delegates, other candidates and members of the Utah Legislature in the days following Maloy's convention win.
It alleges that Maloy is ineligible to run in the special election to replace Rep. Chris Stewart because her voter registration was inactive and on a list to be removed from the rolls the day she filed. Maloy registered to vote as a Republican in 2016, but she didn't vote in 2020 or 2022 in Utah because she was working for Stewart in Washington at the time.
The Washington County clerk designated Maloy's status as inactive in April 2019 after learning that she no longer lived at the address provided on her voter registration, according to a timeline provided July 3 by House Speaker Brad Wilson, R-Kaysville.
Federal law doesn't require congressional candidates be registers voters, but Utah law says an individual may not "file a declaration of candidacy for a registered political party of which the individual is not a member."
Maloy said she wasn't aware of her inactive voter status when she filed as a candidate, and she updated her registration a few days later before she filed paperwork with the Utah Republican Party, after Henderson's office notified her as a courtesy.
Henderson has repeatedly said Maloy meets the qualifications to run as a Republican, and GOP Chairman Robert Axson affirmed her eligibility with the party and submitted her name as the convention winner on July 5.
Axson could not be reached for comment Wednesday.
In a letter posted to Twitter June 30, the lieutenant governor said state law allows her to "consider declarations of candidacy 'valid unless a written objection is filed.' To date, no written objection has been filed. Furthermore, if a written objection was filed, the candidate would be given the opportunity to cure any alleged problem if possible."
But Denning said he doesn't believe Maloy was registered as a Republican when she filed paperwork, and alleges Henderson didn't follow the law when she notified Maloy of the issue with her registration and afforded her the opportunity to fix it.
"The whole complaint is, that on the day that the filing deadline occurred, the fact is that Celeste wasn't filed as a Republican," he said. "There is nothing in the code or the statutes that give the lieutenant governor authorization or permission to violate that."
Denning also alleges that Maloy isn't a resident of Utah, which is a requirement for candidacy under the Utah Republican Party Constitution.
Maloy filed income taxes in Virginia while working for Stewart, but she told conservative blogger Eric Moutsos in a video that she never received Virginia residency while she worked there. She also said she never registered to vote outside of Utah during that time.
The lawsuit claims Maloy was a resident of Virginia when Stewart announced his resignation, and claims she used the address of a residence belonging to someone else when she filed as a candidate.
Maloy previously told KSL.com she lives with her sister in Cedar City as her permanent residence, and that's the address that was provided.
In the lawsuit, Denning points out that state law provides a path for party leadership to replace a candidate on the ballot in the event the candidate "resigns, dies or becomes incapacitated after nomination at the state convention or at the primary election."
Other candidates respond
Maloy is vying for the Republican Party's nomination in a primary election scheduled for Sept. 5, alongside longtime Republican National Committeeman Bruce Hough and former state lawmaker Becky Edwards.
"Our campaign continues to be laser-focused on communicating Becky Edwards' track-record as one of Utah's most effective lawmakers and her positive vision for addressing the issues that matter most to voters," Edwards' campaign said in a statement.
Hough said the state party is a private organization that certified Maloy as the winner of the convention, and said the "facts are in the record" when asked what he believes about her voter registration.
"There's certainly nothing that Celeste did that I think was intentional to violate any law," he told KSL NewsRadio. "I think she made some mistakes. But hey, we all make mistakes, and I think she should get a little grace for that."
Denning said he plans to support the eventual Republican nominee regardless of who it ends up being.
"I will support the Republican candidate that comes our of the primary for sure," he said. "This is not about Celeste. ... If things were different, and we didn't have this issue, I may have been one of the supporters of Celeste at this point."
