Goud Maragani has made government transparency a key part of his campaign, but his promise to publish voter ballot images online may not be legal.
Goud Maragani, the Republican candidate for Salt Lake County clerk, has made government transparency a key part of his campaign, citing increased interest from citizens requesting public records to understand the election process.
In 2020 the Salt Lake County clerk’s office received one public records request, known as a GRAMA . But after Trump claimed the election was stolen, the office in 2021 received 86 requests. Another 62 requests were filed this year through August. A number of these requests have sought evidence of fraud in official emails, with dozens of such requests filed by a handful of individuals.
Maragani believes if the county clerk worked cooperatively with record requesters there would be less filing of such massive GRAMAs.According to records received by The Utah Investigative Journalism Project, the Salt Lake County clerk’s office identified 179,873 potential records, primarily emails, from GRAMAs filed from January 2021 through August 2022. That doesn’t include a few requests that were so large that exact estimates couldn’t be provided.
Government agencies often have to redact, or black out, information in records they release to the public. In many cases this information includes private details or personal information about residents. Then again, Maragani believes requesters may be satisfied if more information is automatically posted online by the clerk’s office. That may include scanned ballot images that would allow citizens to conduct their own count of the vote. It’s also an idea that the current clerk’s office says is completely illegal.
If that office disagreed with his interpretation, Maragani said he wouldn’t be afraid to push back against them.Even if the State Office of Elections disagreed with Maragani’s interpretation of Utah law, he said he may then make a public posting that he planned on releasing the records in 45 days and give parties the chance to sue the office to block release.
“In such case the danger of tampering with the ballots is so great that no opportunity must be afforded by those who are entrusted, under the law, with their safekeeping,” read the opinion of the Utah justices in the Farrell v. Larsen case.
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