As momentum gathered around the chorus of Colorado Republican leaders calling on political novice and gubernatorial nominee Dan Maes to drop out of the race, Secretary of State Bernie Buescher reported Friday that his office is completing the ballot for the November election.
Buescher said that Friday would have to be the deadline if his office was to comply with federal regulations. He said he had submitted a MOVE Act waiver to the federal government to give the state more time but that the request was denied. He said the late Colorado primary made the federal deadline extremely tight.
From Buescher’s office:
“Despite various media reports and rumors, my office will continue to perform our ballot certification process, and we will certify the ballot content by 5:00p.m. on Friday, September 3,” Buescher said. “Because of our late primary and challenges associated with recent federal legislation, timelines are incredibly tight. My office and the clerks are already arranging ballots and preparing to print more than three million ballots by the September 18 deadline.
“Any last minute changes to the ballot after tomorrow’s deadline will need to be addressed on a county-by-county basis. Our clerks will do everything in their power to ensure an accurate ballot is sent to voters within the timelines being enforced by the Department of Justice and state law. Certainly, the waiver submitted by my office from the MOVE Act was going to act as a safety net for exactly this kind of scenario. Unfortunately, that safety net was denied and our new timeline barely leaves room to meet the federal mandate.”
Buescher said today’s release comes in answer to the volume of questions received by his office in the wake of the Maes debacle about potentially changing the ballot to add the name of a new GOP candidate for governor. He repeated that all changes now would have to occur on a county-by-county basis.
—
Reporting by Joseph Boven.
Comments are closed.