These unofficial results were obtained on the night of November 8, 2022. The hard-working staff of the Kane County Clerk/Auditor’s office were actively counting and adjudicating votes, and they graciously provided the reported numbers in real time - some of these preliminary results show comfortable leads unlikely to be overtaken by the votes yet uncounted, but there are a few significant races that still have big question marks. As of this report being printed, there were still about 700 votes in various states of processing out of the total 3354 that were received - most of those votes are the ones in the ballot boxes at the various drop-off points, which are collected and counted last. Many of those have to wait ‘till the morning of November 9.
For some general Kane County results to start: for the U.S. Senate, Mike Lee held a comfortable lead of more than 40 percent of the vote over Evan McMullin. For U.S. House District 2, Chris Stewart held the lead by over 50 percent of the vote. For State Treasurer, Marlo Oaks holds over 70 percent of the vote. Kane County voted very firmly Republican, keeping to tradition.
As for local results, Kane County voted two to one in favor of incumbent Phil Lyman for Utah House District 69 - reports from other counties show that Lyman is the likely candidate for the seat. Grand County, which is one of the more populous counties in the district, is firmly in favor of Smith, but it would take a fairly significant upset late in the election to result in a win for the Smith Campaign.
Preliminary results for Kane County Commission Seat A were in favor of Patty Kubeja, with 1,661 to Andy Gant’s 1,427. That race is, however, closer than it looks at first glance; as of this article printing, there were still over 300 votes awaiting adjudication. According to staff at the County Office, the primary reason for adjudication is a write-in candidate to be verified. That 300 outbalances the difference between Kubeja and Gant, but just barely - the race for Seat A comes down to the wire, with the deciding factor being the votes yet to be adjudicated and those yet to be counted from the ballot boxes. Kubeja leads at the moment, but it’s too close to comfortably call either way.
Commission Seat B, on the other hand, is more conclusive. Celeste Meyeres leads with 1,500 votes, compared to her opponents Pat Horning with 776 and write-ins for Camille Johnson totaling 967. Theoretically, Johnson has the same ambiguity as Gant above, with the potential for write-in votes turning the tide, but it would have to be a comprehensive landslide of the last batch of votes to be counted in her favor. Odds significantly favor Meyeres for the seat.
The seat for the Kane County School Board’s 4th District was also hotly contested - the preliminary results showed Marc Grow in the lead by only 19 votes, less than five percent of the vote over LoRal Linton. 19 votes is no significant lead, so this race will have to wait till morning to be called once the remaining votes are tallied.
As for the 5th District, Jarad Brinkerhoff had a larger lead over Brian Goulding, but by no means a comfortable one: Brinkerhoff stood at 343 votes, Goulding at 284. That difference is still well within the means of the final batch of votes to overturn, but the vote would have to buck the pattern quickly to prove that.
For Judicial Retention, both Paige Peterson and Brody Keisel were retained by a wide majority.
And finally, Constitutional Amendment A - an amendment which would have authorized the legislature a wider margin of the general funds to leverage in special session - failed decisively, with almost 2,000 votes against.
In all, the votes received as of the evening of November 8 totaled 3,354. According to the staff of the Clerk/Auditor’s office, this is a fairly significant turn out, already well beyond the turnout of the primary. When asked how it shaped up against other elections, Heather Narramore of the election staff responded “It depends on the campaign. I’ve worked quite a few elections and they’re always different.” Clerk/Auditor Karla Johnson added “I’ve been doing this for thirty-one years, and it’s the same for me; no two elections are ever the same.”
While the constraints of the print schedule makes it unlikely for the November 10 print issue of the SUN to contain the official and final results of this election, check for an update with the final tally online at SUNews.net. The Southern Utah News thanks Josh Warburton of the Independent for sharing his live updates with us and our readers.
Thanks as well to all those who voted, and those who participated in the election through the forum of the Southern Utah News - things get heated, but we appreciate the passionate words of our readers and the active engagement through means of letters to the editor and political advertising.
As a short note from the editor - a few of our readers reached out asking why their ballots were different from some of their neighbors in other parts of the County. In short, the ballots specific to voters in the school district whose seats were up for election had those school district candidates on their ballots. If you don’t live in Kane County School Districts 4 or 5, the school district vote did not show up on your ballot.
