Utahns are nearly evenly split on whether to repeal Utah’s Proposition 4 redistricting law eight years after it narrowly passed as a ballot initiative, according to the latest Deseret News/Hinckley Institute of Politics poll.
As Republican lawmakers seek to reverse a series of court decisions that allowed 3rd District Judge Dianna Gibson to implement a new congressional map, the state GOP is gathering signatures to put the underlying law on the ballot — again.
The GOP, with the help of national get-out-the-vote groups, is in the midst of collecting more than 140,000 verified signatures from voters across the state. He must do so before February 14 to give voters a chance to repeal Proposition 4 in November.
Passed with 50.3% of the vote in 2018, Proposition 4, or the Better Boundaries initiative, established an appointed redistricting commission and codified anti-gerrymandering restrictions to guide the redistricting process every ten years after the census.
More than 4 in 10 Utah voters don’t know if they support the GOP’s effort to eliminate Utah’s independent redistricting commission, the poll found. The rest of the voters are divided, with 26% supporting the proposal and 29% opposing it.
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Voters are undecided across the political spectrum.
Among Republicans, 33% support the repeal, 22% oppose it and 45% don’t know. Support falls to 22% among Democrats, with 40% opposed and 37% feeling unsure. Only 20% of independents support the repeal of the proposal, while 34% oppose it and 46% do not know.
The survey was conducted by Morning Consult between January 7 and 12, among a sample of 799 registered Utah voters. Results from the full survey have a margin of error of +/- 3%.
GOP, Better Boundaries respond
The uncertainty of Utah voters is not alarming for Utah GOP chairman Rob Axson. It’s encouraging, he said, because it reveals even after nearly a decade, and millions of dollars spent on behalf of Proposition 4, that “it’s not sitting well with the people of Utah.”
“I think we’re in a perfect spot,” Axson told the Deseret News. “We haven’t even begun to communicate broadly what the issue is beyond our signature-gathering efforts, and we’ll have the rest of 2026 to engage substantively in dialogue and discussion.”
As of Thursday afternoon, with one month to submit signatures, the Lieutenant Governor’s Office had verified the signatures of 45,505 Utah voters who wanted to see the Proposition 4 repeal question placed on the general election ballot.
This number does not reflect the total number of signatures collected so far, however. Once a package of signatures is started, the GOP has 30 days to change it. The county clerk will then have 21 days to verify those signatures, with a March 7 deadline.
The initiative’s sponsors are “very confident” they will collect enough verified signatures in time, according to Axson. “We look forward to having Utahns make this decision with a broader understanding of the issue than they had back in 2018,” he said.
Better Boundaries, the political interest committee that raised funds and advertised for the Proposition 4 initiative, told the Deseret News that the organization looks forward to reviewing the reasons why Utahns decided to pass the law eight years ago.
“Utahns across the political spectrum supported Proposition 4, and this poll reflects that,” said Better Boundaries executive director Elizabeth Rasmussen. “We will continue to defend the right of Utahns to choose their politicians and ensure fair representation.”
The group referred to the GOP initiative as a “real opportunity” to “get back to basics and re-make the case for why Utahns passed Prop 4 in the first place.” Based on the survey data, both sides have a lot of undecided minds left to convince.
And no wonder. The state’s redistricting saga has been long, complicated and full of conflicting demands from the top of Utah politics about who should have the final say on drawing congressional maps: legislators, a commission or the courts.
Washington County rejects new map
In 2021, lawmakers adopted new electoral boundaries that divided Democratic voters in Salt Lake County after rejecting the redistricting commission’s recommendations, which they had made nonbinding during the previous legislative session.
This invited a lawsuit in 2022 that resulted in a decision by the Utah Supreme Court in 2024 that the Utah Legislature cannot, in many cases, amend ballot initiatives that reform the government. Based on this, Gibson threw the map of Utah in October.
Gibson then decided in November that a replacement map adopted by lawmakers was not in line with the original intent of Proposition 4. Instead, she chose a map submitted by nonprofit groups that created a deeply Democratic seat in Salt Lake County.
Over the past three months, the disagreement over Proposition 4 has boiled over into GOP allegations that Gibson drew a map to benefit Democrats, and that the new legal precedent supporting her decision has created a “constitutional crisis.”
That’s the view of Washington County Commissioner Victor Iverson, who joined fellow commissioner Adam Snow last month in voting not to update the county’s voter county maps to conform to the new court-ordered boundaries.
At the heart of Iverson’s criticism is the belief that by installing a map not approved by the Legislature, Gibson violated the state Constitution which states, in Article IX, that “the Legislature shall divide the state into … congressional districts.”
“We believe in the separation of powers,” Iverson told the Deseret News. “If Judge Gibson wants to take over the powers of the governor, the lieutenant governor and the Legislature, well, maybe she can come down here and take over the power of the county commission.”
The Legislature has already begun the process of appealing Gibson’s decision to the Utah Supreme Court. Meanwhile Iverson said lawmakers should vote on a new map during the next legislative session, and involve the federal courts.
Iverson framed the commission’s Dec. 15 vote as a way to “send a message” to Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson that the process leading to the new map is unacceptable. The Utah Democratic Party, for its part, framed the move as “political obstruction.”
“Counties don’t get to overrule state law or judicial decisions when it’s inconvenient,” party president Brian King said in a statement. “This kind of behavior erodes public trust and tells voters that the rules only apply when those in power approve them.”
Proposition 4 deserves to be upheld, by the courts and counties, according to King, because Utahns voted in 2018 to put restrictions on legislators “to ensure fair maps, fair elections, and the basic idea that no one is above the law.”
If the Utah Republican Party’s 2026 ballot initiative is successful, Utah voters will have the chance to decide whether they believe Proposition 4 is — after years of legal battles — the right way to make it happen.