"My intent is to prohibit special elections and to require these kinds of issues to be decided only on the November ballot," Stephenson said.

But Sorensen said the June date is one of two allowed under current Utah election law, and he is troubled that some lawmakers have slammed the district when it was acting legally.

"It is really problematic to be legally able to do it in June and then be criticized for doing that. It seems odd that we've been beat up so badly," he said.

In the past the district has held bond elections in February, May and June, but that was before the Legislature limited special elections to June and November. Stephenson said that the June date was left in place for emergency elections, but in the case of the Nebo vote, no such emergency existed

E-MAIL: mhaddock@desnews.com