By McKenzie Romero | Editor
For months, Utah Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson has been locked in a fierce political standoff. She has been criticized, sued and investigated over her refusal to turn over private voter data and her defense of mail in voting — from the top of her own party.
With mere weeks before Election Day, the state’s chief election officer described her frustration about threats she sees to Utahns’ voting rights in a sit-down interview together with KUER, PBS Utah and Utah News Dispatch.
In today’s Dispatch we share Henderson’s candid conversation about election “gamesmanship,” the candidate debate in the race for Utah’s largest congressional district and the growing balcony solar movement.
“I take Utahns’ voting rights very, very seriously. They are sacred, and they ought to be protected, and they ought to be preserved, and they shouldn’t be mucked around with for political purposes.” — Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson on her concerns about the Trump administration’s moves around voting.
Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson poses for a photo in the Gold Room at the Capitol in Salt Lake City on Thursday, Feb. 15, 2024. (Photo by Spenser Heaps for Utah News Dispatch)
By Katie McKellar
Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson has pushed hard against President Donald Trump’s executive order seeking to change how the U.S. Postal Service processes mail-in ballots, including mandating states collect information from voters and send that information to the federal government.
She has also heavily criticized Sen. Mike Lee’s proposed SAVE Act as legislation that would “hurt Utah voters and preempt state laws in ways that don’t make sense” while being “impossible to implement.”
Celeste Maloy, left, listens as Kent Udell answers a question during a 3rd Congressional District debate at Utah Tech University in St. George, Friday, Oct. 2, 2026. (Pool photo by Jud Burkett special to The Tribune)
By Alixel Cabrera
Candidates vying for Utah’s 3rd Congressional District made their pitches for what will be the largest district in the state, clashing over environmental issues, nuclear energy, forest management and the boundaries of Utah’s recently reduced national monuments.
Republican Rep. Celeste Maloy is going into her second general election candidacy, facing Democratic nominee Kent Udell, a mechanical engineer. The two faced off in a debate as they compete for the new district that was laid out when the state’s congressional maps changed this year.
Solar energy panels hang from a residential apartment balcony in Erfurt, Germany. (Photo by Sean Gallup/Getty Images)
STATELINE
By Alex Brown
Over the past year and a half, a dozen states have embraced a new vision for solar power: small, cheap panels that can be hung from a balcony or porch, be plugged into a standard wall outlet and take a dent out of residents’ utility bills.
The recent burst of balcony solar bills kicked off in Utah. Republican state Rep. Ray Ward read an article about the balcony solar boom in Germany, where the devices have surged in popularity and are widely available in stores such as IKEA, and thought “How come I cannot do that in Utah and in the U.S.?”
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