Federal Court Denies GOP Request to Block Colorado Unaffiliated Voters From Presidential Primary
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Last week, a federal court rejected the Colorado Republican Party’s attempt to nullify a ballot initiative that allows unaffiliated voters to participate in the 2024 Republican primary in Colorado.
Passed by Colorado voters via ballot initiative in 2016, Proposition 108 allows unaffiliated voters to vote in partisan primaries for major parties without declaring affiliation to that party.
As of Aug. 1, 2023, 47% — or 1.82 million — of Colorado’s 3.88 million registered voters are unaffiliated, the largest group of voters in the state.
The complaint — penned by prominent conservative lawyers including disgraced Trump lawyer and independent state legislature theory architect, John Eastman — alleges that Proposition 108 violates both the First and 14th Amendments of the U.S. Constitution and requests that the court block its enforcement.
The plaintiffs asked the court to temporarily block the law, but the court declined to do so after finding that the Colorado Republican Party is not likely to succeed on the merits of its claims. This is a victory for Colorado voters — specifically over a million independent voters — who could have been disenfranchised if the GOP had prevailed.
This marks the second loss for Republicans with ties to Jan. 6 who challenged the primary system ahead of 2024. In Nevada, a judge denied the Nevada Republican Party’s (NV GOP) request to block a state law mandating parties to hold primaries for the 2024 presidential election. The attorney representing the NV GOP in that lawsuit — failed Republican attorney general candidate and conspiracy theorist, Sigal Chattah — has “significant ties” to the conspiracy to overturn the results of the 2020 election.