September 09, 2022 10:09 AM UTC

Eyes Off The Prize: Priola Recall Gets Election Day Deadline

•  
• by: Colorado Pols

A press release from Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold today announces the approval of petition language to recall state Sen. Kevin Priola (freshly D), and a deadline set for recall organizers led by conservative activist Michael Fields to turn in the requisite signatures coinciding with Election Day 2022:

The Colorado Secretary of State’s Office has approved the petition format for the effort to recall Senator Kevin Priola. Proponents now have until November 8th, 60 days after notice of approval, to collect the required signatures and submit them to the Secretary of State’s Office for review.

The Secretary of State’s Office informed proponents on August 29 that they must:

Collect signatures from constituents in Senate District 13, based on the new map that went into effect in 2022; and
Submit no fewer than 18,291 valid signatures in order to be deemed sufficient and hold a special recall election.

The signature threshold for sufficiency was determined based on voter counts from the 2020 election in Senate District 25 per Colorado state law. This determination was made in consultation with the Colorado Attorney General’s Office.

Also on August 29, the Secretary of State’s Office provided a cost estimate of $199,079.95 for a special election to proponents of the petition to recall Senator Kevin Priola. This cost will be paid by the counties in which the special election is held, should proponents’ signatures be deemed sufficient.

You couldn’t ask for a better way to sum up the almost unimaginable folly of launching a recall campaign against a locally popular elected official for the unforgivable sin of switching parties in the middle of an uphill must-win election season than the deadline for turning in petition signatures actually falling on Election Day. No doubt Republicans will claim they can fold the petition campaign into their GOTV program for the district, but the bottom line is that persecuting Priola for the wholly partisan offense of defecting from the Republican Party is of little to no interest to unaffiliated voters who decide Colorado elections. And once they start asking questions about why Priola left the Republican Party, things go downhill with swing voters pretty quickly.

The messaging coming soon to Adams County: vote for Joe O’Dea because he’s “not focused on political parties.”

Then sign up to recall Kevin Priola because…political parties!

It’s a great way to distract yourself from losing the elections that matter.