April 25, 2017 04:13 PM UTC

Denver Post Adds Nice Postscript to "Keyser's Law"

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• by: Colorado Pols

We wrote yesterday about the advancement of HB17-1088, otherwise known as “Keyser’s Law,” because the bill seeks to correct a rather large loophole in the signature-gathering process for candidates — a loophole that former Republican Senate candidate Jon Keyser infamously exploited in his 2016 Senate bid.

“Keyser’s Law” is headed to the desk of Gov. John Hickenlooper for his formal signature creating the new law, which will apply the same standards for checking signatures on candidate petitions as is already done for ballot measure petitions and mail ballots. Today, Megan Schrader of the Denver Post editorial board ties a neat little bow on this small piece of Colorado history:

Let’s recount the fun of the Republican showdown to get on the Colorado primary ballot in 2016 for U.S. Senate: one meme-inducing video, three court challenges, nine deaths by caucus and 34 felony forgery charges…

…This year, state lawmakers tried to come up with a solution. Only one idea has stuck so far.

House Bill 1088  — which is headed to the governor, who is reportedly likely to sign it — would require signature verification and allow candidates to remedy small errors before signatures get tossed out. The secretary of state will use voter signatures already retained in a database for ballot-verification purposes to verify signatures on petitions. No longer would the job fall to reporters like Mitchell — I mean Marshall — Zelinger, the former Channel 7 investigative reporter who chased down the fraudulent signatures that were included on candidate Jon Keyser’s petition. Keyser memorably botched Zelinger’s name, refused to answer the reporter’s questions about the signatures and instead issued a vague threat involving the size of his dog. [Pols emphasis]

Schrader notes that “the bill is a good idea,” and we don’t disagree. Unfortunately for Keyser and his campaign, there is no piece of legislation that will scrub this mother-of-all-political-disasters from anyone’s memory — not anytime soon.