Colorado GOP goes all in on trying to block una liated voters

BY SANDRA FISH AND JESSE PAUL THE COLORADO SUN

e Colorado GOP led a federal lawsuit July 31 doubling down on its attempt to block una liated voters from casting ballots in the party’s 2024 primaries as part of a controversial strategy to help Republicans exit obscurity after three straight election cycles of defeat.

e legal action came as the party’s leaders were set to gather Aug. 6 to consider a bylaws amendment backed by Colorado GOP Chair Dave Williams that would make it easier for Republicans to opt out of Colorado’s primaries next year altogether.

e amendment failed e Republican Party is represented in the lawsuit by John Eastman, the attorney who helped Donald Trump try to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election and who appeared to be an unindicted coconspirator in an indictment against Trump that was released recently. e latest lawsuit seeks to exempt the Colorado GOP from a 2016 ballot

Randy Corporon, a conservative talk radio host and a member of the Republican National Committee, is also representing the GOP in the case. e defendant is Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold, a Democrat and the state’s top elections o cial.

“We welcome all una liated voters to join our party if they want to have a say in selecting our nominees but we will not stand idly by as radical left-wing organizations use an unconstitutional law to further harm our election e orts,” Williams wrote in an email to Colorado GOP members Tuesday announcing the legal action. e email also asked for donations to support the lawsuit.

A federal judge rejected a similar lawsuit led by a group of Republicans in 2020 seeking to ban unafliated voters from the primary that year. e judge said the plainti s didn’t have standing to sue because the legal action wasn’t brought by the state party itself. Eastman and Corporon were also the attorneys in that suit.

Eastman was a conservative scholar at the University of Colorado and he may soon be disbarred by the state of California for his spread of 2020 election conspiracies.