A Comedy Of Errors

Here come the Libertarians again, pissing in the soup and highlighting the lack of forethought that went into the election law whooped through the Dem-controlled legislature earlier this year. First the law:

At issue is a July 22 emergency rule concerning recall successor candidates for Senate District 11 (Colorado Springs) and Senate District 3 (Pueblo), requiring a 10 day deadline for nominating petitions in a recall election. The purpose of the short deadline was to allow time for printing and mailing of ballots in advance of the September 10 election date. That meant the last day to submit completed petitions was July 29.

The law changed our elections from walk in and vote to all mail-in. This means the candidate list must be complete early enough to print and mail all the ballots. This includes ballots to the military overseas.

However, Article XXI, Section 3 of the Colorado Constitution allows any qualified candidate the right to submit completed nominating petitions up to 15 days in advance of the election date.

After submitting the petitions, the signatures need to be verified. Creates a bit of a dilemma for the printers.

The other pisser is the Libertarians desire to get on the ballot. In Dist 3, there are no Dems currently on the ballot as none were able to get the required signatures in time. Extending the deadline may change this. In Dist 11 a Dem is on the ballot. In Dist 11 the electorate is closely divided favoring conservatives by about 13.5/12. Sen Morse got the job when a Libertarian took about 10% of the conservative vote. Now they want to do it again.

Libertarians: Electing Democrats from the beginning.