Salt Lake County mayoral write-in candidate Ellis Ivory won't be going on the ballot as the official Republican candidate — at least for now.

In a Monday letter to county Republican Party chairwoman Tiani Coleman, County Clerk Sherrie Swensen rejected an attempt to certify Ivory as the party's candidate, saying the proper procedure had not been followed.

The action extends an already messy election season, keeping things up in the air between now and the Nov. 2 election. Ivory will likely be certified as the GOP candidate in a GOP Central Committee meeting next week, giving Swensen only a few days to put his name on more than 4,000 ballot booklets.

And that's not even taking into account possible legal action by the state Democratic Party, which could push the matter to the final hour.

"(Ivory) is going to have to run a write-in campaign until the very end, and people could really get confused in the polling booth," Coleman said.

In fact, given the circumstances and possibility of confusion, Ivory — who has been making appearances in a bus decked out to look like a pencil — did not discount the possibility of continuing as a write-in, even if he is ultimately certified as the Republican candidate.

"I'll have to read (Swensen's) letter and think about it," he said Monday. "I'll have to get a proper legal opinion. It's unusual, but this whole situation is unusual."

Last week, Coleman tried to certify Ivory as the official GOP candidate, based on a vote of the Republican Central Committee Oct. 5 to support him. But because incumbent Nancy Workman was still on the ballot (she withdrew last week), the committee could not officially certify Ivory as its candidate at that time.

"These facts render the actions of the Party Central Committee on October 5, 2004, legally insufficient to meet the statutory requirements," deputy district attorneys Karl Hendrickson and Dahnelle Burton-Lee wrote in a letter to Swensen Monday.

It is, however, only a temporary setback. The Republicans are scheduled to meet next Tuesday to certify Ivory properly. Should that vote go Ivory's way — as Coleman says it almost surely will — and Ivory submits a new declaration of candidacy, Swensen said she would put his name on the ballot.

Ironically, Coleman's attempted certification of Ivory was in response to Swensen's own plea to speed things up as much as possible because the election will be held in two weeks. Given the attorneys' opinion, however, Swensen had little choice but to reject Coleman's action.

Nevertheless, "I appreciate your efforts," she wrote to Coleman.

Swensen is clearly worried about getting everything ready before Nov. 2, particularly given the threat of legal action from the Democrats (her own party) or independent candidate Merrill Cook.