Four Utah counties chose to certify e-signatures on Farley Anderson's petition to run for governor, and Lt. Governor Greg Bell has named those four counties as third-party defendants in a law suit over the use of e-signatures.

Salt Lake, Washington, Kane and Sanpete counties all had e-signatures approved by county clerks.

Mr. Anderson, like any other gubernatorial candidate, had to get 1,000 signatures on a petition in order to run for governor. He came in on the filing deadline with 1,132 signatures, and 178 of them were electronic. He did not return later in the day with 46 more signatures. The Lt. Governor's office rejected his petition. Anderson took his case to the Utah Supreme Court the same day.

The Salt Lake County clerk's office said they were able to verify all of the e-signatures.

According to Utah law written in the year 2000, e-signatures are legal for certain electronic governmental transactions - like paying your taxes. Anything else, including petitions for referendums and initiatives, is yet to be determined, according to Attorney General Mark Shurtleff.

The state says Anderson is pushing Utah where no state has gone before. They want time to sit down and consider what will work. Anderson believes elections have "become about selling influence, to buy elections" by requiring candidates to come up with huge sums of money for a traditional campaign.

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