SALT LAKE CITY — Some paid signature gatherers working to place a repeal of Proposition 4 on the November ballot have misled or withheld information from voters about what the ballot initiative would do, according to a KSL investigation.

Paid staff and volunteers have spread out across the state in recent weeks in a Republican-led push to collect about 141,000 signatures before the deadline on Feb. 15. While many of those gatherers have presented the issue fairly to voters along with the required text and with information about how to remove signatures after the fact, some have given vague or even contradictory information about the effort to repeal Utah’s law meant to prohibit gerrymandering.

Shane Landon, of West Valley City, said he was approached by gatherers at the Kearns Oquirrh Park Fitness Center earlier this month while taking his son swimming for his birthday. Landon said he signed the petition after he said he was told that it “puts the power back in the hands of the people” when it comes to drawing political boundaries.

Landon said he was not shown the text of the initiative and didn’t realize what it did until he returned to his car after having already signed the form.

“What they’re doing is wrong,” he said. “They gave me misinformation; they didn’t really describe anything. In fact, the exact opposite. I felt tricked, you know, and I felt like lied to.”

Shane Landon is pictured in Salt Lake City on Thursday. (Photo: Jason Hammer, KSL)

Proposition 4 was narrowly approved by voters in 2018, creating an independent commission to advise lawmakers on drawing congressional boundaries and establishing a set of standards meant to prevent partisan gerrymandering. It was repealed by lawmakers in 2021 but reinstated as the law of the land last August when 3rd District Judge Dianna Gibson ruled lawmakers acted unconstitutionally when they replaced it.

Gibson later adopted a map proposed by plaintiffs, which draws parts of northern Salt Lake County into a Democratic-leaning district. All four of Utah’s congressional seats are currently held by Republicans.

Utahns for Representative Government, a political issues committee led by Utah Republican Party Chairman Rob Axson, launched the effort to roll back Proposition 4 in October. Axson did not respond to a request for comment Thursday.

Supporters of the initiative have promoted it as an effort to reestablish the Legislature’s constitutional authority over political map-drawing, saying Proposition 4 and the subsequent court rulings eroded lawmakers’ power.

“The Utah Constitution is clear: The authority to draw congressional districts rests with the people’s elected representatives — not with the courts and not with an unaccountable commission,” the group said at the time.

President Donald Trump put out a call on social media Friday, urging his supporters to sign petitions to qualify the repeal for the ballot.

“A very important effort is underway in Utah to repeal Proposition 4, make Map Drawing accountable to Utah Voters, stop Radical Leftist Judges, and KEEP UTAH RED,” the president wrote on Truth Social.

Though Landon said he doesn’t closely follow politics, he said he preferred that there be a commission to assist lawmakers in drawing maps.

“I didn’t want to repeal Prop 4,” he said. “I hadn’t even done the research. That just felt shady to me.”

Landon’s experience likely wasn’t an isolated incident. KSL has received multiple tips over several weeks about signature gatherers giving misleading information to voters in several counties. Gatherers have approached off-duty newsroom employees in recent weeks as well.

Daniella Rivera, KSL

In one instance, a gatherer said the petition was meant to help the homeless. After being pressed, he admitted it was to repeal Proposition 4 and to “remove the crooked judge,” likely referring to Gibson. Another gatherer approached an employee near a Salt Lake City grocery store and asked if they would like to register to vote, when they were actually collecting signatures for the initiative.

State law says that circulators of initiative petitions must “ensure the voter has a chance to read and understand the law proposed by the initiative,” “inform each signer that she or he is required to read and understand the law proposed by the initiative” and “must present a printed or digital copy of the initiative and wait for the individual to read it,” according to the Utah Lieutenant Governor’s Office.

Voters can request that their signatures be removed from a petition, but they must do so by sending physical requests to their county clerk’s office within 45 days of their name being posted on the lieutenant governor’s website.

To look into claims of misleading gatherers, KSL spoke with circulators at eight locations across Salt Lake County this week. Reporters did not initially introduce themselves as journalists in order to observe authentic interactions between gatherers and potential signees.

While most gatherers provided a copy of the initiative language and accurately described the proposal, a couple did not provide a physical or digital copy of the initiative text and most did not say that signers should read the full text in front of them and understand it before signing.

A woman collecting signatures at a print shop in Draper on Wednesday said an unspecified “they” are trying to turn Utah “blue,” and said the initiative “keeps them from doing that.” She did not provide a copy of the initiative and instead directed KSL to visit the Utah Legislature’s website — which does not include information about Proposition 4 on its homepage.

Information about initiatives can be found on vote.utah.gov.

“All it is is basically they just want to keep Utah red,” said another gatherer at Bennion Junior High School in Taylorsville.

A gatherer at a grocery store in Draper said the initiative would repeal Proposition 4. He stated incorrectly that Utah voters “voted on it about three years ago and then … it didn’t go through and then the judge passed it this December.”

“If you wanted to be a little more liberal, you probably don’t want to sign the petition,” he added. “This is to keep it more conservative.”

Gatherers at the Kearns Oquirrh Park Fitness Center, the Draper Division of Motor Vehicles, South Jordan Recreation Center and the State Office Building in Taylorsville provided physical copies of the Proposition 4 repeal to KSL on Wednesday, along with a link with instructions to remove one’s name from the petition. Two other locations provided links to the petition text online but said they did not have a physical or digital copy on hand.

Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson confirmed to KSL that her office has received complaints about misleading information given by petition circulators, but added that her office often receives such complaints about all types of initiatives.

“We have received a number of complaints, mostly regarding circulators allegedly providing misinformation,” she said in a statement. “It is not uncommon to receive similar complaints when any petition is circulated. We have also heard reports of circulators being treated with hostility and urge the public to be kind and courteous to signature gatherers no matter what side of the issue they’re on.”

Utahns for Representative Government has until Feb. 15 to collect about 141,000 signatures statewide and must also meet a threshold in 15 of the state’s 29 counties. More than 64,000 signatures had been validated as of Thursday morning, according to the lieutenant governor’s office.

Contributing: Eric Cabrera

Correction: An earlier version incorrectly stated that voters have 30 days to request that their name be removed from a petition after signing. Voters typically must submit their removal notice within 45 days of their name being posted on the lieutenant governor’s website.

The Key Takeaways for this article were generated with the assistance of large language models and reviewed by our editorial team. The article, itself, is solely human-written.