Suit seeks to remove Keyser from ballot
Three Colorado voters backed by a high-profile Democratic attorney are asking a court to remove Jon Keyser from the Republican primary for U.S. Senate, in part based on the forged signatures submitted by his campaign.
The lawsuit filed Friday alleges that Keyser used 60 forged signatures in the 1st Congressional District to qualify for the ballot and asked a judge to void them — a move that would leave him with 1,460, just short of the 1,500 needed.
“This action seeks to ensure votes will not be counted for one candidate whose placement on the ballot is a function of fraud in the petition process,” the lawsuit reads.
The number of disputed signatures on Keyser’s petitions is far more than previously known and based on the analysis of a handwriting expert retained by the plaintiffs, the lawsuit states.
The new legal challenge is the latest headache for the Keyser campaign in the month-long saga about whether he qualifies for the Republican contest to challenge Democratic incumbent Michael Bennet. And it comes 10 days before ballots are mailed before the June 28 primary.
In a statement, Keyser’s campaign dismissed the lawsuit as a political move. “It’s no shock that liberals are deploying the Democratic super lawyer who represents all their pet liberal causes in an attempt to save Michael Bennet from losing to Jon Keyser in November,” said spokesman Matt Connelly.
Democratic lawyer Mark Grueskin filed the lawsuit on behalf of two Republicans and one Democrat against Secretary of State Wayne Williams, asking for a judicial review of the process and court rulings that put Keyser on the ballot. In addition to the 60 signatures now in question, Grueskin said even more were identified as suspicious in other districts but not listed as part of the lawsuit.
He rejected the Keyser camp’s assertion about the lawsuit’s motive. “If I had to defend forgery and fraud, I would probably try to deflect the issue to anything else, too,” he said.
Keyser initially failed to qualify for the ballot after the secretary of state found errors in his petitions that left him just short of the total needed in one congressional district. The campaign filed a legal challenge and won after the judge applied a more lenient “substantial compliance” standard, as allowed in state law.
But days later, controversy again engulfed the campaign as media organizations found more than 10 voter signatures on the petitions were forged.
Keyser refused to answer questions about the issue for weeks but later distanced himself from the company that collected signatures for his campaign, as the Denver district attorney launched a review of a complaint filed by the liberal organization ProgressNow Colorado.
To complicate the situation, the secretary of state’s office revealed that a dead voter signed Keyser’s petitions —though it didn’t count — and referred the matter to local prosecutors May 17.
All the questions about signatures involve one canvasser, Maureen Moss, who worked for Black Diamond Outreach, a Denver-based firm that collected Keyser’s signatures.
The lawsuit argues that the court should toss an additional 102 to 178 valid signatures that appeared on the same petitions as the forgeries, because the fraud negates the sworn affidavit submitted by Moss.
The Keyser campaign said it is confident it could add an unknown and unverified number of signatures to its total because others were not counted by the state but meet the “substantial compliance” standard.
The three voters named as plaintiffs in the lawsuit are Marcy Cochran, a Loveland Republican; Jonathan Royce, a Cañon City Republican; and Michael Cerbo, a Denver Democrat.
The Republican secretary of state never issued an official statement of sufficiency that Keyser qualified for the race, relying instead on a court order. The lawsuit asks Williams to issue one, saying it is required by law.
Suzanne Staiert, the deputy secretary of state, suggests that the case should be dismissed because it came weeks after the certification of the ballot.