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SALT LAKE CITY — Colby Jenkins requested a recount in Utah's 2nd Congressional District Republican primary election on Monday, which he lost by 214 votes to Rep. Celeste Maloy.
Jenkins, a former Special Forces commander, announced his request for a recount Monday afternoon on X, one week after Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson certified the statewide canvass of the June 25 primary elections.
"We have formally requested a recount," Jenkins' post reads.
It included a copy of the request sent to Henderson, which also requests that poll watchers for the campaign "be granted meaningful access, from no further than 6 feet away."
Maloy responded to the request with confidence, saying in a video that she expected it and doesn't expect it to change the result of the election. Recounts are rare in elections and generally don't change the final tally by more than a handful of votes.
"My team's prepared for this," Maloy said. "I want to make sure that every Utah voter has a high level of confidence in our election system, the integrity of our elections, and that the votes will be counted. ... So, we'll watch this recount play out, but I'm confident that the final results will be the same."
Jenkins has signaled he would request a recount following the statewide canvass, after the race fell within the 0.25% margin necessary for one. The race between him and Maloy was too close to call on election night and only got closer in the following weeks as the remaining votes were counted.
Jenkins tried to delay the certification of the election due to a tranche of mailed ballots from southern Utah that were postmarked after the deadline to be counted. He speculated that some of the ballots may have been mailed in a timely manner but received a late postmark due to the U.S. Postal Service's processing through Las Vegas.
His attempt was unsuccessful after a federal judge said the campaign didn't prove that the rejected ballots were mailed on time.
"Just because the delays occurred for these individuals does not mean there's arbitrary and disparate treatment of voters by the state statutory system. I find that that system posted puts the burden on the voter to obtain the timely postmark," U.S. District Judge David Nuffer said.
When an election falls within 0.25%, the losing candidate has seven days following the certification to call for a recount. County clerks have an additional seven days after that to conduct it by recounting all tabulated ballots and reexamining uncounted ballots before the county boards canvass the results.
