GOP opposes attempt to dump vote

Colorado Republican leaders are mounting a concerted effort to quell dissension in their ranks ahead of a Saturday vote on whether to cancel the party’s 2018 primary for Congress, governor and other elected offices.

A coalition of Republican activists on the party’s governing body is attempting to block the state’s 1.4 million unaffiliated voters from casting ballots to pick the party’s candidates — a move GOP leaders and elected officials oppose because it could hurt their chances in the all-important November election.

Colorado will allow unaffiliated voters to participate in the June party primaries for the first time in June 2018 under Proposition 108, but the new law allows political parties to opt out, cancel the primary and instead select candidates through a caucus process.

Republican Party Chairman Jeff Hays is leading the opposition to the opt-out movement and enlisting support from U.S. Rep. Ken Buck, Secretary of State Wayne Williams and former party chief Dick Wadhams.

If the party opts out, it would also make it harder for the state’s 1.1 million Republican voters to participate. In 2016, only 60,000 party members participated in the caucus vote.

“Even though I’ve struggled with this issue, I think it’s best for the party to move forward and consent to the will of Coloradans,” Buck wrote in a recent email sent to the party’s governing body. “To disregard the voters would potentially hurt our statewide candidates in the upcoming election and would embody the back-room dealing our party stands against.”

The question is whether it’s too late.

The Colorado Democratic Party rejected the idea outright earlier this year, saying even the vote could alienate independent voters. If the GOP cancels the primary, it would only provide Democrats with political fodder.

And Republican leaders acknowledge that if the party doesn’t vote overwhelmingly to keep the primary, it could hurt their candidates’ chances to court unaffiliated voters.

“We need to kill this thing,” said Wadhams, the party’s chairman from 2007 to 2011. “If it comes close to 50 percent, I do think it is an embarrassment for the party.”

The party’s state central committee will meet early Saturday in Englewood to take a vote. To opt out, it takes the agreement of 75 percent of the 490 voting members of the committee — an intentionally high bar written into the 2016 ballot measure. It’s even possible the party won’t even get that many members or proxy votes to the meeting.