February 18, 2022 11:54 AM UTC

Guns at Polling Places? You Bet, Says Heidi Ganahl

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• by: Colorado Pols

Republican gubernatorial candidate Hiedi Heidi Ganahl has been traveling around Colorado speaking to small GOP audiences in advance of the April State Assembly. Ganahl doesn’t even pretend that she isn’t pandering to the right wing; Two-Sidey Heidi just tells every crowd what she thinks they want to hear, regardless of how much it exposes her to problems in a potential General Election matchup with incumbent Democratic Gov. Jared Polis.

On Thursday, Ganahl was conducting a meet-and-greet in Pueblo when the discussion turned to guns and a bill in the state legislature seeking to restrict the ability to openly carry a weapon at polling places.

House Bill 22-1086, “The Vote Without Fear Act,” is sponsored by gun safety advocate Rep. Tom Sullivan (D-Centennial). According to the bill text, the proposal “prohibits a person from openly carrying a firearm within any polling location or central count facility, or within 100 feet of a ballot drop box or any building in which a polling location or central count facility is located, while an election or any related ongoing election administration activity is in progress.” The point here is pretty obvious: Nobody should feel intimidated by another person while casting their ballot in an election.

But Ganahl, of course, is much more worried that people who insist on carrying guns might be sad if they couldn’t vote without one. Listen below to what she had to say about this bill, or read the transcription that follows:

GANAHL: “And we’ve got to follow the Constitution. I’ve got to trust people and follow the Constitution. I’ve got to defend your Second Amendment rights. I’m the daughter of a police officer. I got concealed carry. I was raised to know how to shoot and we cannot let them degrade our rights anymore at the Capitol. Have you guys seen this? What’s it called? Vote for, say — about having guns around — open carry around the polling? Yeah, polling places. That’s their latest tactic to, you know, basically water down our rights.”

This probably plays well to a right-wing audience, but it is a position that could prove costly in a General Election. We seriously doubt most Colorado voters would oppose the idea of keeping firearms away from polling places.

“The Vote Without Fear Act” passed out of a House committee this week and now heads to the floor for discussion. Republican lawmakers have made been making silly arguments in opposition to the legislation, as Nick Coltrain reported this week for The Denver Post:

Rep. Mary Bradfield, R-Colorado Springs, decried voter intimidation but said that her constituents sent her to the Capitol to protect their Second Amendment rights.

“Voter intimidation is wrong at any time. It was wrong in the past, it’s wrong today and it’s going to be wrong in the next election,” Bradfield said. “… But I see what happens here with the passage of this bill is what my constituents will see as their Second Amendment rights beginning to be eroded. That is troublesome.”

In other words, carrying a gun is more of a fundamental right than being able to vote without intimidation. That’s not a position that we’d be excited to defend in an election year.