Republicans Don’t Choose Republican Candidates: 

Republicans should choose Republican candidates. But it doesn’t happen in Colorado. In Colorado primaries Republican ballots are mailed to twice as many unaffiliated voters as are mailed to registered Republicans!

This has been our upside-down election policy since 2016, the arrival of the open primary system. It permits unaffiliated voters to vote in either Republican or Democrat primaries.  Those voters are manipulating outcomes to undermine the Republican party.

As a result, nearly 40% of those who vote in the Republican primary are not registered Republicans.  Many of them vote for the Republican candidates they think can’t win the general election.  The results speak for themselves.

Open primaries are destroying our party:

The damage has been breathtaking: A significant drop in Colorado Republican membership; not a single statewide Republican elected official; the lowest number of Republican legislators in 80 years; declining numbers of Republican county officials.

The open primary has been devastating to the Colorado GOP. It has opened the floodgates to liberal progressives who are fundamentally transforming Colorado into a high-tax, broken-economy, big-government, woke-world. 

Open primaries are too expensive:

The open primary also drives up the cost of primary elections for counties and candidates. County clerks must print, mail and process millions more ballots. Primary candidates are forced to spend much more to expand their outreach as the raw number of ballots and voters is that much bigger.

Open primaries violate the U.S. Constitution:

Finally, the open primary is not constitutional. In 2000 the US Supreme Court’s Jones decision declared that a political party cannot be forced into an open primary system. Among other problems, the open primary violates the citizens’ right to freedom of association.

How You Can Help:

For all of these reasons, in July of 2023 the Colorado Republican Party filed a lawsuit in federal court challenging the open primary. The wheels of justice move slowly, but we expect to have a court hearing in 2025. We need your help to fund this vital project. 

Federal lawsuits are expensive, but if everyone pitches in we can aggressively challenge this unconstitutional, unworkable law that is crushing the two-party system here in Colorado.

These could be the most cost efficient dollars you invest in our state’s future.  A lot that needs to be done to clean up our elections in Colorado and this is the first and most productive step we must take right now. Before the end of 2024 please consider a contribution to the funds that have been set up to launch this significant challenge to Colorado’s open primary system.

As the end of the year draws closer we will continue this conversation on our challenge to the open primary system here in Colorado.

Sincerely,
The Colorado GOP Lawsuit and Legal Affairs Committee