Ben McAdams, elected Congressman, after certification of results

SALT LAKE CITY – Ben McAdams, elected member of Congress, after the certification of the election results on Tuesday.

Mia Love, the mayor of the Salt Lake County Democratic Party, won 694 votes after the final vote in the 4th Congressional District, 21 votes more than would have been expected for a recount.

McAdams was confident enough in the 739-vote victory he had obtained after Monday's results to declare his victory, saying he did not see how Love could catch him in the county's final totals.

Love did not concede Monday, but issued a statement in which she expressed her thanks to the voters. She was due to make an announcement on Tuesday when all the counties in the district will have finished certifying the vote.

The final counts in Utah County in the 4th District are 23,432 for Love and 8,516 for McAdams. That's 55 votes more for the two-term Congressman and 16 more for McAdams.

In Salt Lake County, the number after Tuesday's solicitation for McAdams rose to 124,754 to 104,742 for Love. The Salt Lake County Clerk, Sherrie Swensen, said there were less than 200 additional votes to add to Monday's totals.

The 4th district includes parts of Salt Lake and Utah counties, as well as counties of Juab and Sanpete, all considered conservative bastions. The counties of Juab and Sanpete have already completed their voting certification.

McAdams chose not to wait for counties to end their vote on Tuesday to declare themselves victorious in the litigation race. The certification of the final vote by the state is scheduled for Monday.

"Was it unusual (for McAdams) to make an uncompromising statement? Yes, but the whole process was unusual and prolonged," said Chris Karpowitz, co-director of the Center for the Study of Democracy and Elections. BYU.

Karpowitz said that until the provisional ballots were counted Monday in Utah and Salt Lake counties, both candidates still had reason to hope to win the most competitive race. competitive state.

The fact that these votes "broke out dramatically for Ben McAdams indicates that they were probably much more democratic new voters", probably because of Proposition 2, a voting initiative aimed at legalizing marijuana for purposes medical, he said.

Proposal 2, which was adopted but will be replaced at the Extraordinary Legislative Session next month, was attributed to increased voter turnout throughout the state, to the stimulation of young voters, especially new voters. Venus.

The election, mostly by correspondence, may have caused problems to Love, who was relying on support in Utah County to counter McAdams' forces in Salt Lake County.

Instead, voters in Utah County who decided that instead of mail, they would vote them in person on polling day, created long queues because there were fewer polling stations. vote only in an ordinary election.

"The fact that people have had to wait for hours means we will never know how many people left before voting," said Karpowitz. He said that the way Utah County had run the elections "seemed to be very problematic and hurt the love."

Governor Gary Herbert, a Republican and former Utah County Commissioner, recently showed himself even more direct in his assessment, calling the county "the epicenter of dysfunction" in elections.

The state does not have an automatic recount in tight races, but candidates who lose 0.25% or less may request that votes be recounted. Love was just shy of this margin in Monday's results.

Last week, the Congressional campaign, which had two terms, sued the Salt Lake County Clerk on counting votes, highlighting the process of verifying the signing of the vote. Voter used when the ballots were not signed or the signatures did not match.

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The case was filed the day after his hearing before the 3rd district court. Karpowitz said the lawsuit "was a sign that the Love campaign was very worried about how this was going to happen," especially since it was only targeting Salt Lake County.

Jason Perry, director of the Hinckley Institute of Politics at the University of Utah, said the big question for Love was whether she would run for re-election in the 4th district.

"I think we did not see Rep. Love's last representative and that district proved in this election that it was dangerous for anyone," Perry said, noting that In 2020, there could be no proposals on the ballot polls.

contributing: Katie McKellar