UTGOP.info: Accurate Information for Utah Republicans
"Political free speech is the most highly protected free speech that there is."
Rick Votaw, Salt Lake County Vice-Chair speaking at an indoctrination camp held for Salt Lake County Republican Party precinct chairs, May 31, 2008.
•   The primary purposes of the Utah Republican Party as it exists today are two-fold: incumbency protection, i.e., protecting incumbents from Republican challengers who might, in a free and fair election, be capable of defeating a given incumbent, and self-protection, i.e., attacking with an intent to destroy any individual or group of individuals who might speak in open opposition to the less ethical practices of party leaders at any given time.
•   One of the primary mechanisms for fending off Republicans who would challenge an incumbent at a convention is the illicit practice of seating large numbers of party leaders and elected officials as automatic delegates in spite of their usual failure to seek or obtain election in their precinct caucuses.
•   Individuals who openly oppose the practice of seating automatic delegates in Republican conventions are attacked, villified, and otherwise persecuted by party leaders who bristle at insinuations that they are cheats. Consider the following quote from an article about automatic delegates that appeared in the Deseret News shortly before the Utah Republican Party's nominating convention in 2006:

"James Evans, Salt Lake County GOP chairman and former state senator, said it 'irresponsible,' for Jason Chaffetz and others to say that any candidate lost a race because of automatic delegates. 'The automatic delegates in Salt Lake County make up only 5 percent of our state delegate allocation; no (state convention) race has been that close.'"

Why the animosity against a guy that most people don't think has an irresponsible bone in his body?  Because he publicly circulated a letter to the Republican state delegates urging them to end the practice of allowing automatic delegates to be seated in Utah's Republican conventions. It's automatic.
•   This pales in comparison to what party leaders have done to party member, Mike Ridgway, over the last six years.
•   Occasionally, the party will also work to fend off or defeat a Democrat, but this "purpose" is clearly secondary to the purpose of keeping ethical conservatives who agree with the platform and who don't have a penchant for dishonesty from obtaining elected office.
•   Any representations or insinuations on the part of party leaders that the purpose of the Utah Republican Party is to advance conservatism generally or the conservative principles specifically enunciated in the party's platform are universally false.
•   The rules of the Utah Republican Party provide for grassroots-based elections where the fundamental principle undergirding convention elections is that all delegates gain access to Republican conventions on an equal basis -- election in one's precinct to represent the Republican voters living in that precinct. These rules prohibit the designation of so-called automatic or super delegates.  However, those rules are universally ignored by party leaders in favor of patronage schemes which allow elected officials and party leaders to be seated as delegates in contravention of the rules of the Utah Republican Party -- for the obvious reason that free and fair elections can be fatal to the objective of guaranteeing the election of all incumbent elected officials.
•   The rules of the Utah Republican Party and of the Salt Lake County Republican Party require party officers to be neutral in races between Republican for public office.  Such rules are routinely violated by party leaders at either the county or state level.
•   Party members have the power to take back the Republican Party and return it to the purpose of electing ethical conservatives to public office.  For this to take place, however, will take tremendous effort on the part of large numbers of courageous and principled individuals.