On Oct. 31, write-in candidate for Carbon County Commissioner/Surveyor Rick Davis was officially disqualified from the upcoming election. According to Carbon County Clerk Seth Oveson, Davis failed to turn in a financial disclosure required by law for all candidates to file, thus leading to his disqualification from the Nov. 4 race.
“The law states that all candidates must turn in a financial disclosure no less than seven days prior to the election,” Oveson explained. “He (Davis) turned in his disclosure on Oct. 30, two days past the Oct. 28 deadline.”
A political financial disclosure is documentation that indicates all campaign contributions and expenditures made during the course of a political race. Disclosures allow the public to view spending for each candidate and are required by state law to be available to voters prior to a general election.
Because Davis was a write-in candidate in the commissioner race, special modifications were made to ballots prior to primary elections. This means that his name will still appear on the ballot during Tuesday’s election. Voters need to be aware that by casting a vote in favor of Davis, that vote will not be counted and will in essence be null and void.
All votes made in favor of Davis during early election voting will also be thrown out according to Oveson. “Any vote made for Davis will not count,” he advised. “In order to be eligible as a write-in candidate, an individual must qualify as eligible. Any write-ins made during an election are mainly made as a statement.”
Davis would have been deemed eligible for the race if proper financial information was provided by the Oct. 28 deadline. Since he was disqualified from the race, John Jones and Jake Mellor are the only two candidates on the ballot eligible for election into office.
To view Carbon County candidates financial disclosures, visit www.carbon.utah.gov and click the link Financial Campaign Report 2014. For Emery County candidates, visit emerycounty.com. Under the online services tab, click election services and on the left hand side of the page click Financial Campaign Report.