Walker Stapleton, the leading Republican candidate for Colorado governor, acknowledged that his campaign submitted fraudulent petitions to qualify for the 2018 ballot, a revelation that forces a must-win vote at a party meeting on Saturday to remain in the race.
The two-term state treasurer and Bush family relative said Tuesday a firm hired by his campaign broke the law when it collected voter signatures to secure a place on the primary ballot, confirming allegations of wrongdoing made weeks earlier by a rival.
In a letter, Stapleton asked Secretary of State Wayne Williams to invalidate all of his campaign’s petitions and withdraw his name from the ballot.
“In good conscience, I cannot be put on the ballot in this manner and I will not be,” Stapleton told reporters. “My campaign plans to go through assembly — to take our message of economic opportunity … directly to the voters at assembly, and we intend to win there.”
The move will force Stapleton, the contest’s top fundraiser and pole sitter, to qualify for the race in a vote at the state Republican Party assembly, where he must receive at least 30 percent from the estimated 4,200 delegates.
And it creates an early showdown with two candidates seeking to qualify the same way: Attorney General Cynthia Coffman and Barry Farah, a first-time candidate who has aligned himself with the Koch brothers.
“The truth is, Walker tried to avoid addressing Republican delegates and got tripped up in the execution of his own political strategy,” Coffman said in a statement, reacting to Stapleton’s announcement. “A candidate shouldn’t be rewarded because he couldn’t buy his way onto the ballot.”
Colorado election system once again under scrutiny
The controversy puts another spotlight on Colorado’s complicated process for candidates to make the ballot, echoing controversies in 2016 that hurt Republicans’ chances to win the U.S. Senate race.
The same day, the firm Stapleton hired to collect signatures sat at the center of a dispute in Denver District Court. A lawsuit alleged that hundreds of signatures collected by Kennedy Enterprises for U.S. Rep. Doug Lamborn, R-Colorado Springs, were invalid because most of the signature-gatherers did not meet state requirements for residency.
If affirmed, the legal challenge could have kept the six-term incumbent off the ballot, but Judge Brian Whitney ruled in Lamborn’s favor to preserve most of his signatures. An appeal to Colorado’s Supreme Court is expected.
Stapleton had moved to intervene in the case but withdrew the effort moments before his announcement. A court filing noted that “six of the seven circulators … who gathered signatures for Mr. Lamborn also circulated petitions in support of Mr. Stapleton’s candidacy.”
Lamborn spokesman Dan Bayens applauded the judge’s decision and said in a statement that the campaign is “very disappointed that our opponents resorted to a cheap political stunt in an attempt to disenfranchise voters.”
To add to the commotion about petitions, Brad Levin, a Democratic candidate for attorney general, and two voters filed a lawsuit Tuesday claiming the petition process is unconstitutional, in part because the signatures of unaffiliated voters do not count, even though they can vote in the primary.
“This lawsuit challenges a process that serves to devalue and disenfranchise not just Democratic voters, but all Colorado voters, regardless of party affiliation,” he said in a statement.
Stapleton casts himself as “a victim” of misconduct
The questions surrounding Stapleton’s petitions began in March when rival Doug Robinson’s campaign alleged illegal conduct after a secretly recorded phone call.
In the call, Daniel Velasquez acknowledged collecting signatures for Stapleton even though he was not a registered Colorado voter and did not certify under oath that he collected them.
The secretary of state’s office investigated but found no evidence to substantiate the complaint. Days later, it validated Stapleton’s petitions and put him on the ballot.
Stapleton’s campaign and Kennedy Enterprises denied any wrongdoing at the time. But Dan Kennedy, the firm’s owner, told Stapleton’s campaign Monday evening that he just had learned that Velasquez did collect signatures for the campaign.
Stapleton disclosed the new information at a hastily arranged announcement in which he accused Kennedy of lying in prior statements and cast himself as “a victim of this misconduct.”
He decided to withdraw his petitions to protect “the integrity of Colorado’s election process,” he said, and vowed to file a lawsuit against Kennedy Enterprises after paying the firm more than $200,000 for the work.
Kennedy said he did not lie to Stapleton’s campaign nor the secretary of state’s office. “To the best of my knowledge, the signatures collected on the Stapleton campaign we’re all collected lawfully,” he said in a statement.
This is not the first time Kennedy Enterprises has faced questions about its signature-gathering work.
In 2014, the El Paso County District Attorney filed charges that included forgery and perjury against a signature collector who worked for the company. And in other cases, in Colorado and elsewhere, the company was accused by critics and rivals of misleading voters when seeking signatures for various ballot questions.
Republican challengers blasted Stapleton for not taking responsibility for hiring the firm.
In a statement, Robinson applauded Stapleton’s decision to withdraw his petitions, but he said it “does not change the fact that this fraud was perpetrated right under Walker’s nose. … It strains credulity to believe that no one on Walker’s team was aware of these abuses before last night.”
Coffman suggested Stapleton “chose to hire a group of shady petitions gatherers with a notorious and sordid past.”
“Now,” she concluded, “it will be up to the delegates to decide who they trust to represent their interests in the primary elections.”
