OPINION
There is an ongoing legal battle for Colorado elections. Despite being wholly ignored by the uniparty establishment, the saga is highlighting the inequities in Colorado’s legal system and reemphasizing criticisms of our state’s elections.
Here’s the premise: Not a single “Top Line Candidate” made the 2022 general election ballot following the June 28th Colorado Primary.
Top line candidate refers to a candidate with the majority votes during the party’s caucus and assembly prior to the primary. The Colorado Republican Assembly was more highly attended than any in recent history, with many of the establishment favorites, such as Olympian Eli Bremer, failing to achieve the 30% vote threshold for the contest. Party energy was high.
In the months since, establishment Republicans have called for an end to caucus, that is, an end to the local party members selecting their candidates through live community forums, beginning at the precinct. Candidates can alternately qualify for the ballot via petition, though candidates with the highest vote totals in caucus earn top billing on the primary ballot — indicating their favor with the party’s most engaged voters.
In El Paso County, only those establishment candidates that petitioned were able to make the primary ballot — they failed at assembly. Then most of them won the primary. Head scratching was followed by outrage which led to calls for a recount.
Six local candidates for various legislative and county offices were joined in their recount demands by statewide candidates Tina Peters and Ron Hanks. To secure their recounts, the candidates engaged in a confusing process where Secretary Griswold and Clerk Broerman appeared to be improvising as they went.
To secure the recount, candidates were given impossible time frames — reportedly 24-hours for some — to deliver massive sums, ranging from $20K to $200K+ per candidate. In the end, only four candidates met the demands: Tina Peters (Secretary of State), Peter Lupia (County Clerk & Recorder), Lynda Zamora Wilson (State Senate), and Dr. Rae Ann Weber (County Coroner).
The recount was tumultuous, beginning with an over 50% error rate during the Logic and Accuracy Test. This was explained away, despite the fact that there were overt statute violations during the test. For example, C.R.S. § 1-10.5-102(3)(a) reads:
“Prior to any recount, the canvass board shall choose at random and test voting devices used in the candidate race, ballot issue, or ballot question that is the subject of the recount. The board shall use the voting devices it has selected to conduct a comparison of the machine count of the ballots counted on each such voting device for the candidate race, ballot issue, or ballot question to the corresponding manual count of the VOTER VERIFIED paper records.”
The test was not conducted using Voter Verified paper records. It was conducted using test ballots that were created for that explicit purpose. During the recount, batches were run through the same tabulators as the original count. This decision reinforces the concern that tabulator programming can impact election counts. Why didn’t the county run the ballots through a different tabulator to assuage this concern?
One of the most shocking events during the recount was an election worker, caught on video, modifying original, signed batch labels so that the original label matched the recounted label. The video was raised and the election worker was later dismissed, but the issue was never mentioned as the County and State officials congratulated themselves for a “successful recount.”
These are just some of the reasons these El Paso candidates have been seeking remedy. They have filed four legal actions which have all been outright denied, without an examination of the evidence. On September 14, Colorado’s highest court denied their petition, for the second time.
The candidate’s next stop is the U.S. Supreme Court. More information is at colora dorecount.com.
No court has ruled yet on the evidence of election fraud, in Colorado, or around the nation. The administrative reasons for dismissing petitioners are many, from standing, to impossible procedural deadlines, and many others. Never the evidence.
I asked the candidates’ legal team why they continue this fight.
“We have a duty, as futile as it may seem, to exhaust our remedies,” was the response received.
And ourselves, it would seem.
Ashe Epp is a writer and election integrity activist. Read her work at asheinamerica.com and follow her on Telegram and other socials @asheinamerica.