DISTRICT COURT RULES ON BALLOT CHALLENGES
Robert Blaha and Ryan Frazier snag a stay for a chance to land on the ballot.
Court orders handed down Friday open up a ballot spot for Republican U.S. Senate candidate Jon Keyser, and allow legal challenges from two other GOP candidates.
A pair of court orders Friday revived the once-defunct campaign of a U.S. Senate candidate and halted the certification of the Republican primary ballot to allow legal challenges from two more candidates.
The decisions are just the latest twists in the roller-coaster contest to challenge Democratic U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet in November.
District Court Chief Judge Michael Martinez put a stay on the ballot certification deadline minutes before 5 p.m., pushing it to Wednesday.
Robert Blaha and Ryan Frazier — two top-tier candidates who failed to make the ballot — sought the delay to allow them to challenge the secretary of state’s ruling that neither submitted the 10,500 valid signatures required to qualify for the race.
“I feel confident that this step will lead us to a positive outcome for our campaigns and for Colorado voters,” Blaha said in a statement, echoing comments from Frazier a day earlier. He added: “I look forward to the real race once the ballot is set.”
Hours earlier, Jon Keyser won a second chance after a problem with his petitions left him 86 signatures short of the ballot.
District Court Judge Elizabeth Starrs issued a ruling that Keyser’s campaign “substantially complied” with the law when he submitted signatures.
Keyser missed the mark in one congressional district because the address for one of the petition collectors did not match the registered voter file, as required by law.
The Keyser campaign filed a lawsuit Tuesday and presented evidence at an emergency hearing to show the campaign aide is a registered voter but listed a different address because of a recent move.
The judge ruled that the election law “is to be liberally construed” and found the address mismatch too minor to keep Keyser from the ballot.
“The Colorado Election Laws are designed, in part, to eliminate fraud,” Starrs wrote. “No fraud was present here.”
Colorado Secretary of State Wayne Williams, a Republican, said the order allows his office to count the signatures — and gives Keyser enough to qualify.
Keyser must now overcome other challenges that are injecting questions into this campaign — not least among them, the fact he needed a court ruling to keep his campaign alive.
Two other candidates are qualified for the race: Darryl Glenn, an El Paso County commissioner and little-known Tea Party favorite; and Jack Graham, a former Colorado State athletic director who pumped $1 million into his campaign.