Rep. Doug Lamborn to remain on ballot after some signatures invalidated

UPDATE: One batch of signatures collected for Rep. Doug Lamborn’s ballot petition was ruled invalid by a district judge in Denver, but Lamborn still has enough signatures to remain on the Republican primary ballot.

A hearing took place Tuesday to determine whether seven circulators who collected signatures for Lamborn weren’t Colorado residents. Only one of those circulators, Jeffrey Carter, had his signatures invalidated.

Statecraft PLLC, representing the plantiff told media after hearing today, “Everybody has to follow Colorado’s election rules including the rules of circulators and I don’t believe it’s a nitpicky case when the judge ultimately found that one of the people we were challenging didn’t follow Colorado’s rules and the other one was a very close call.”

Carter had collected 58 signatures for Lamborn, but Lamborn tallied up more than 1,200 in total. He needed 1,000 valid signatures to remain on the ballot.

Counsel for the Lamborn campaign said after the hearing, “”The court specifically found that all of the other circulators had established the appropriate standards, had properly met the requirement to register to vote, deemed to be residents of the state of Colorado, that they did nothing in terms of their activities or ties to the state.”

The district judge also ruled that Lamborn’s campaign wasn’t aware of any improprieties by Carter and that the Colorado Secretary of State’s Office didn’t do anything wrong.

Lamborn said earlier that these kinds of lawsuits are filed frequently, and added that it was “going to go nowhere.”

Earlier

Several circulators took the stand Tuesday at the Denver Justice Center in a hearing for a lawsuit to remove Rep. Doug Lamborn from the Republican primary ballot.

It’s part of an evidentiary hearing for a lawsuit filed against Lamborn, who represents Colorado’s 5th District.

The lawsuit alleges “that nearly 700 petition signatures collected for Doug Lamborn’s placement on the June 26 Republican primary ballot were collected in violation of Colorado law and should be invalidated,” essentially saying Lamborn’s campaign used hired guns to collect signatures.

Tuesday, five people testified that they were Colorado residents when they worked as petition circulators for the Lamborn campaign.

They were asked about their residency and why they moved to the state in the first place. Four of the five witnesses live in Thornton and moved here from Michigan. Those four claimed to not have moved here together or to specifically circulate for Lamborn.

Lamborn responded to this lawsuit over the weekend saying “that lawsuit is going to go nowhere.”

“Those lawsuits are brought every single election, they always fail, and that’s what is going to happen here… it’s going to be a dis–well, a nuisance–it’s not even going to be a distraction, it’s going to be a nuisance for two or three weeks,” Lamborn said.

The court took a recess and will continue with more circulators after the break.

Tuesday, Republican gubernatorial candidate Walker Stapleton withdrew his ballot petition over concerns that some of the signatures collected were improperly obtained. Stapleton and Lamborn both used Colorado Springs-based firm Kennedy Enterprises.

This is a developing story, check back for updates.