Ways to Stave Off Inevitable Defeat

by: Colorado Pols

Wed May 23, 2007 at 07:45:01 AM MDT

A City Council candidate asked the Denver Election Commission on Tuesday to have her opponent declared ineligible.

District 3 candidate JoAnn Phillips' campaign manager spoke at the commission meeting, saying that Phillips' opponent, Paul Lopez, did not meet residency requirements.

Lopez, who couldn't be reached for comment Tuesday night, has adamantly denied claims that he lived outside the district within the 12 months preceding the May 1 election.

The city requires that council candidates live in Denver for two years and in the council district for one year.

In response to the claims from Phillips' campaign manager Alfonso Suazo, Assistant City Attorney Vicky Ortega said the only way to take action would be for someone to contest the election in district court.

Suazo said after the meeting that the Phillips campaign has been consulting with lawyers about contesting the election...

For the record, we don't care who wins this race. We don't know JoAnn Phillips from Adam, except that she is a candidate who barely managed to make the June 1 runoff election (results of which were 45% of the vote to frontrunner Paul Lopez, 15% to Phillips), has no realistic chance of winning based on those numbers, but has managed to keep these questions about her opponent circulating in the press for almost two weeks now--despite the fact that the Denver Election Commission has formally ruled and stated to anyone who asks that Lopez has met their requirements.

Since the Election Commission is the body responsible for certifying these things, we think it's unlikely that a District Court will find anything with which to countermand their ruling. But of course, that may not be the point: simply keeping the "discussion" going until Election Day might be the goal for Phillips' supporters.

It's a time-honored rule: if you know you're going down in flames, make a big crater.