Fred Hayes

Fred Hayes is a Republican candidate for Utah State Senate District 1 in the 2026 election. He initially sought the Republican nomination but lost in the party's convention on April 25, 2026. Following this, he launched a write-in campaign for the general election, emphasizing that his name will not appear on the ballot and voters must manually write it in. A central theme of his candidacy is election integrity, an issue he has researched for years, citing concerns about Utah's electronic voting systems and potential for manipulation. With an engineering background, Hayes asserts his expertise in identifying vulnerabilities in election systems. He advocates for hand-counting ballots and criticizes what he perceives as a lack of transparency and a cover-up of potential fraud by public officials and the Republican party regarding election data. He aims to bring technical expertise to the legislature to safeguard the foundational processes of suffrage.