The relevant part of the Utah legislative code is 20A-7 Part 2; here’s a PDF of the whole thing. Note that, per 20A-1-201, “regular general elections”—which turn out to be the focal point of statewide ballot measures—are held in even-numbered years. The discussion below centers on the Nov 2022 ballot, but there are comments at the bottom about Nov 2024.

When to file

  1. Per 20A-7-206, signatures have to be turned in no later than “316 days after the day on which the application for the initiative petition is filed.” Since there’s a process that takes a minimum of about 6 weeks between filing the application and the beginning of signature gathering (see details in the next section), the maximum window for gathering signatures is about 275 days.
  2. That same statute provides a fair amount of flexibility regarding the timing of that 275-day window. It says that signatures have to be turned in no later than “the February 15 immediately before the next regular general election immediately after the application is filed.” So for measures targeting the Nov 2022 ballot the application needs to be submitted no earlier than Feb 15 2020 and should be submitted no later than April 5 2021, which is 316 days before Feb 15 2022. (Any earlier than Feb 15 2020 and the measure will be considered for the 2020 ballot, not the 2022 ballot; any later than April 5 2021 and you won’t have the maximum window for gathering signatures because of the Feb 15 deadline.)
  3. The most important consideration for determining exactly when to file is probably the weather. The best weather—and the most evening daylight—occurring during Daylight Savings Time, which runs for 238 days from early March to early November. To take maximum advantage of Daylight Savings Time for gathering signatures in 2020, file on the earliest possible date (T Feb 18 2020), begin gathering signatures in early April 2020, and the 316-day window ends on W Dec 30 2020. To take maximum advantage of Daylight Savings Time for gathering signatures in 2021, file on M Dec 28 2020, begin gathering signatures in early/mid February 2021, and the 316-day window ends on T Nov 9 2021.
  4. The Lt Gov’s office tells us that the signature totals needed to make the 2022 ballot will be determined by turn-out in the Nov 2020 election, so it’s probably a bad idea to gather signatures in 2020 because we won’t know how many we need! So that means the best plan is probably to gather signatures in 2021: file on about M Dec 28 2020, begin gathering signatures in early/mid February 2021, and then the 316-day window ends on T Nov 9 2021. (PS. Also according to the Lt Gov’s office, the signature totals we need from the various state Senate districts will be determined turn-out in the Nov 2020 election, and so will not be affected by the redistricting process that follows the 2020 Census.)
  5. Another potentially important consideration is the legislative session, which starts on the 4th Monday in January (e.g., M Jan 25 2021) and ends 46 calendar days later (45 days not including Presidents’ Day, so that’s F March 12 2021).

Process from filing to the start of signature gathering (approx. 6 weeks)

  1. Per 20A-7-202, the proposed law is filed with the Lt Gov’s office along with 5 notarized signatures and various other statements. The Lt Gov can reject the petition (note especially that it can be rejected if “the law proposed by the initiative is identical or substantially similar to a law proposed by an initiative for which signatures were submitted to the county clerks and lieutenant governor for certification within two years preceding the date on which the application for the new initiative is filed”) but let’s assume that it gets the green light.
  2. Per 20A-7-202.5, the Lt Gov has 3 working days to send the proposed law to the Office of the Legislative Fiscal Analyst, and then LFA has 25 calendar days to complete a fiscal estimate. Note that LFA actually took a few days longer than 25 calendar days with our measure in 2019; there appears to be no recourse here other than waiting. LFA then provides the fiscal estimate to the Lt Gov’s office, which emails it to us on that same day. At that point we have an option of revising the measure, which would trigger an additional delay of at least 3 working days plus 25 calendar days. But let’s assume that no revision is necessary.
  3. Per 20A-7-204.1, we then have to hold and record 7 public hearings on the measure no earlier than the day after the fiscal estimate is released. There are a lot of public notice steps to take before these hearings and they’ve gotten more onerous than in the past, so lots of attention needs to be paid to these public notice steps, but acting early enough on these should prevent a delay in the hearings.
  4. After we submit recordings of the public hearings, the Lt Gov’s office will provide us with a sample petition packet per 20A-7-204(2). That will take a few days, and then printing petitions will take about a week. The formal process outlined in 20A-7-204(5) is for us to return the printed petitions to the Lt Gov’s office, which will take up to five working days to number the packets, after which they’re returned to us and we can begin gathering signatures. However, the Lt Gov’s office had us sign an agreement that allowed us to number our own packets, so if that happens again then we could begin gathering signatures earlier.
  5. Summary for gathering signatures in 2020: File on T Feb 18 2020 and the Lt Gov has 3 working days (until F Feb 21) to send the proposed law to LFA, which then has 25 calendar days (until T March 17) to complete the fiscal estimate. If we hold hearings on W March 18 – F March 20 then we can submit recordings on M March 23, the Lt Gov will provide us with a sample petition packet by about Th March 26, and we can then print and number the petitions and begin gathering signatures on about Th April 2 2020, with signatures due by W Dec 30 2020 to qualify for the Nov 2022 ballot. (PS. In chronological order for 2020: at BYU classes end on W April 15, with commencement on Th April 23 and classes starting again on M Aug 31; at SUU classes end on F April 17, with commencement on F April 24 and classes starting again on F Aug 7; at Weber State classes end on M April 20, with commencement on F April 24 and classes starting again on M Aug 24; at Utah State and the U of U classes end on T April 21, with commencement on Th/F April 30/May 1 and classes starting again on M Aug 24 at the U of U and M Aug 31 at USU; at Dixie State classes end on W April 22, with commencement on F May 1 and classes starting again on a date TBD; at UVU classes end on Th April 23, with commencement on Th April 30 and classes starting again on M Aug 24; at SLCC classes end on Th April 30, with commencement on F May 8 and classes starting again on W Aug 26; and at Westminster classes end on F May 1, with commencement on Sat May 9 and classes starting again on M Aug 31.)
  6. Summary for gathering signatures in 2021: File on M Dec 28 2020 and the Lt Gov has 3 working days (until Th Dec 31 2020) to send the proposed law to LFA, which then has 25 calendar days (until M Jan 25 2021) to complete the fiscal estimate. If we hold hearings that week then we can submit recordings on M Feb 1, the Lt Gov will provide us with a sample petition packet by about Th Feb 4, and we can then print and number the petitions and begin gathering signatures on about Th Feb 11 2021, with signatures due by T Nov 9 2021 to qualify for the Nov 2022 ballot. (PS. In chronological order for 2021: at BYU classes end on W April 14, with commencement on Th April 22 and classes starting again on M Aug 30; at SUU classes end on F April 16, with commencement on F April 23 and classes starting again on F Aug 6; at Weber State classes end on M April 26, with commencement on F April 30 and classes starting again on M Aug 30; at Utah State and the U of U classes end on T April 27, with commencement on Th/F May 6/7 and classes starting again on M Aug 30 at USU and TBD at the U of U; at UVU classes end on W April 28, with commencement on Th May 6 and classes starting again on M Aug 23; at SLCC classes end on Th April 29, with commencement on F May 7 and classes starting again on W Aug 25; and at Westminster classes end on F May 7, with commencement on Sat May 15 and classes starting again on TBD. Note that Dixie State info is not posted yet but is likely to be similar to Utah State and UVU.)

Process for gathering signatures

  1. Per 20A-7-206, each signature packet has to be turned in no later than 30 days after the date of the first signature, e.g., May 31 for a packet started May 1, or July 1 for a packet started June 1.
  2. That same section says that county clerks have 30 days after submission of a packet to validate the signatures in that packet. (Our experience is that they often do this faster.) Then 20A-7-205 says that the signer has 90 days after that to petition to have their name removed. [These 30- and 90-day windows change to 21- and 45-day windows for packets received on or after Dec 1.] After this 120-day window the signatures will be “locked in”. Roughly speaking, then, as an example: signatures submitted by the end of August  must be validated by the end of September, and for signatures validated by the end of September the voter has until the end of December to remove their signature.

Comments

  1. If we gather 20,000 signatures in each of April, May, June, July, August, September, and October then we’ll have a total of 140,000 signatures.
  2. Comparison with 2019 effort: In 2019 we started gathering signatures in early July, so we missed 3 key signature-gathering months: April, May, and June.

PS. Similar calculations for measures targeting the Nov 2024 ballot

  1. Following the logic described above, for such a measure the application needs to be submitted no earlier than Feb 15 2022 and should be submitted no later than April 5 2023, which is 316 days before Feb 15 2024. To take maximum advantage of Daylight Savings Time in 2022, file on the earliest possible date (T Feb 15 2022), begin gathering signatures in early April 2020, and the 316-day window ends on W Dec 28 2022. To take maximum advantage of Daylight Savings Time in 2023, file on T Dec 27 2022, begin gathering signatures in early/mid February 2023, and the 316-day window ends on W Nov 8 2023.
  2. Summary for gathering signatures in 2022: File on T Feb 15 and the Lt Gov has 3 working days (until F Feb 18) to send the proposed law to LFA, which then has 25 calendar days (until T March 15) to complete the fiscal estimate. If we hold hearings on W March 16 – F March 18 then we can submit recordings on M March 21, the Lt Gov will provide us with a sample petition packet by about Th March 24, and we can then print and number the petitions and begin gathering signatures on about Th March 31 2022, with signatures due by W Dec 28 2022 to qualify for the Nov 2024 ballot.
  3. Summary for gathering signatures in 2023: File on T Dec 27 2022 and the Lt Gov has 3 working days (until F Dec 30 2022) to send the proposed law to LFA, which then has 25 calendar days (until T Jan 24 2023) to complete the fiscal estimate. If we hold hearings that week then we can submit recordings on M Jan 30, the Lt Gov will provide us with a sample petition packet by about Th Feb 2, and we can then print and number the petitions and begin gathering signatures on about Th Feb 9 2023, with signatures due by W Nov 8 2023 to qualify for the Nov 2024 ballot.