CACHE COUNTY – At a poorly attended Cache County candidate forum on Aug. 26, incumbent County Clerk Bryson J. Behm defended his candidacy against unaffiliated challenger David R. Gillie.
“Now is not the time for on-the-job training …” according to Behm. “I know this job like the back of my hand and I know the intricacies of this role.
“I’m the only one of the ballot,” he emphasized, “who knows how to run an election securely.”
A virtual unknown in local politics, Gillie responded by citing his experience in the U.S. Navy as an intelligence officer and expounded on his ideas of the way things ought to be done.
Since assuming the duties of county clerk in April, Behm has presided over a period of relative calm in that office that included running a flawless primary election in June.
Prior to that, the tenure of former County Clerk David Benson – who resigned in March of 2024 — had been anything but calm.
He was selected by fellow members of the Cache County GOP to replace former Clerk/Auditor Jess Bradfield during a special election in June of 2023, making Benson the third person to occupy that post since the resignation of Jill Zollinger in August of 2020.
Faced with supervising local municipal elections in November of that same year in the midst of an abrupt turnover of personnel from his office, Benson’s administration quickly drew fire from the office of Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson.
Although state investigators found no evidence of fraud in the Nov. 21 election results or a subsequent recount of ballots, Henderson nevertheless issued a scathing report that was highly critical of Benson’s leadership.
“Under your watch, the 2023 Cache County municipal primary and general election fell unacceptably short of … statutory obligations,” Henderson wrote.
“The previous clerk had no election experience and it showed,” Behm observed at the Aug. 26 candidate forum hosted by the Cache Valley League of Women Voters.
While discretely avoiding mentioning Benson by name, Behm said that the “previous clerk” broke more than 30 state laws in running the 2023 municipal elections, including sending out ballots to the wrong precincts in the county and failing to complete “logic and accuracy test” on county voting machines.
“In April,” he boasted, “I came in and fixed those problems … I know how to do this job and I’m really good at it.”
Since most candidates for county posts – who are largely running unopposed – skipped the LWVU forum, the questions to Behm and Gillie dominated that gathering.
Behm predictably made much of his experience in election administration dating back to the 2020 general election.
With a campaign slogan of “Real Elections for Real Citizens,” Gillie trumpeted his endorsement by the Cache County Conservatives, a group supporting the candidacies of state Rep. Mike Petersen (R-Dist. 2) and Cache County Council member Nolan Gunnell (R-South District), among others.
Candidate Allison Goulais – a Democrat running against incumbent Cache County Council member Barbara Tidwell for the Logan 2 seat – also participated in the candidate forum via E-Mail responses to previously submitted questions.