The Utah Lieutenant Governor's Office says it will ask the Attorney General's Office to investigate an anonymous pro-voucher group that could be skirting election laws.

Officials in Lt. Gov. Gary Herbert's office said Wednesday they plan to file an investigation request with the Attorney General's Office today in regard to an entity that has failed to file a political issues committee report, which is a requirement under state law.

Joe Demma, spokesman for the Lieutenant Governor's Office, said that more than a month ago they received an inquiry from an advertising agency that was doing work for an anonymous pro-voucher individual, or group, on a Web site and for radio ads.

"We determined that this person was not acting on his own but was potentially part of group of people," Demma said. "Under law when more than one person engages in helping fund an effort, that person now becomes a group of people, and a group of people under the law has to file as a political issues committee."

He said the determination that the group should file as a PIC was based on the fact that the Web site was soliciting money by saying, "Please donate to the cause, every dime that you donate will go to supporting vouchers." So this anonymous person or group is soliciting and potentially receiving money, Demma said.

But if that is indeed the case, Demma said they are puzzled as to why the group would refuse to file a report.

"That's not a hard thing to do and generally not a big deal so we just were surprised that the entity refused to comply with state law — the reports were due Monday at 5 p.m., and we have yet to receive paperwork from that group — we don't know if that is what they are, but the evidence suggests it potentially could be," Demma said.

Under state law it's a class B misdemeanor to miss the filing deadline, but Demma said historically if groups are a few days late his office would just send them a letter saying deadlines in the future must be met.

"If they continue to disregard official notice from the Lieutenant Governor's Office, that steps up the penalties, and the AG's office would have to take it from there," Demma said. "But we aren't being that dramatic right now, we're just going to file it and tell (the attorney general) there's enough evidence here that we think they potentially needed to (file.)"

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