The good news for conservatives in Colorado’s two recall elections is that they’re still on. The bad news is that recent judicial decisions have made a hash of the rules.
Second Amendment advocates aim to replace Democratic senators John Morse of Colorado Springs and Angela Giron of Pueblo in recall elections on September 10.
The local Republican parties selected former Colorado Springs city councilman Bernie Herpin to take on Morse and George Rivera, former deputy chief of the Pueblo police force, to take on Giron.
But recent court cases are changing the rules for the recall. Originally all ballots were to be cast by mail, but a judge ruled that the deadline for third-party and independent candidates to qualify for the special-election ballot must be pushed back, from 15 days before the election to 10 days. Unfortunately, El Paso County already mailed out 600 absentee ballots to military voters overseas. Absentee military voters will have the option of e-mailing or faxing ballots back to the county clerks in their respective districts.
Now the two state-senate districts may use in-person voting, and may not use mail ballots at all. That would appear to put the Democrat incumbents at a slight disadvantage, but they’re appealing the recent decision to the Colorado supreme court.
So there will be two recall elections, with national ramifications for the gun control debate, in 27 days . . . and no one is entirely sure what the rules to cast a ballot will be.