Posted on 04/27/2016 2:26:08 PM PDT by Beautiful_Gracious_Skies
A plan to return Colorado to a presidential preference primary has cleared its first hurdle at the state Legislature.
A House committee voted 5-4 Monday to set up a primary vote for 2020. Unaffiliated voters could choose to vote in a party's primary as long as they indicate a preference, which would then be scrubbed after the vote.
That falls short of a truly open primary, in which voters could cast ballots in whichever party they choose, without indicating a party preference. Colorado has more unaffiliated voters than voters registered with either party.
Legislative analysts have said a primary vote would cost about $5 million.
Colorado's harried presidential caucuses last month elicited complaints from both Republicans and Democrats.
When you look at the entire year in context 5/2015 - 5/2016, there was certainly a scheme by party insiders that includes the Colorado state legislature that it evidence of deliberate rigging to defraud the Colorado electorate and strictly run their own insider's game.
1) Breitbarts article: "Revealed: Colorado Lawmakers Who Voted to Scrap Election Are Ted Cruz Delegates" which was reposted here by FR, Mozilla, explained how they began last May, to control the outcome of this election. In this article it was revealed through social media posts and Cruz’s campaign website that "his supporters in the CO republican party were responsible for crushing an effort to give Colorado the ability to vote in a state primary."
The Denver Post reported that: In May of 2015, four Colorado Senate Republicans killed an initiative “to create a presidential primary in 2016,” and “Under the bill, Colorado would have held a presidential primary in March that ran parallel with the state’s complicated caucus system… when it came before the Senate Appropriations Committee, four Republicans voted to kill the bill with three Democrats supporting it.” "The four Republicans who voted against the initiative were Sen. Kevin Grantham, Sen. Kent Lambert, Sen. Laura Woods, and Sen. Jerry Sonnenberg. On Cruz’s campaign website, Sens. Woods, Grantham, and Lambert are all listed as Cruz supporters and as declared members of Cruz’s “Colorado Leadership team.” “I am honored to have the support of so many courageous conservatives in Colorado,” Cruz said about his so-called leadership team in early April. “With our incredible team we are in a very strong position for this weekend’s assemblies in Colorado.” Sen. Grantham is even an official Cruz delegate and Sen. Lambert is an alternate Cruz delegate."
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3422007/posts
And while all the other pollsters deliberately stayed away from Colorado, there was a CO poll showing Trump leading Cruz by ten points that was not published until after the scheme was complete: "TRUMP CARD: Magellan Poll Finds That Trump Would Trump Cruz in a Primary." Colorado Peak Politics -Conservative Bully Pulpit ^ | April 21, 2016 | Colorado Peak Politics
There has been a lot of agitation from the Trump Camp about the caucus process in Colorado – and, maybe, now we know why. A Magellan poll released today shows that in a head to head match up, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump would beat his opponent Ted Cruz in Colorado. Trump 44% ----Cruz 34% -------Kasich 17%
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3423563/posts
The rest of the shenanigans have been belabored too many times here and may not be cause enough to unseat the CO delegation. But the fact that Colorado state lawmakers have been involved in the process for a year to aid Cruz raises the issue of rigging to a much higher level.
“Colorado has more unaffiliated voters than voters registered with either party.”
Including me if this passes. I’ll switch to independent so I can have open primaries.
Hopefully, they’ll have mail in ballots so I can root around in dumpsters and vote more often.
They check the signatures on the back of the envelope when you mail it in, so good luck with that.
At least CO is not a state where you may register and vote same day.
IMHO, the primary should be open to the party registered republicans when that state has delivered us a winner in the past.
If Iowa repeatedly puts forth losers, they need not be rewarded. Likewise, some states are weighted too heavily with delegates and others are under rewarded disproportionate to their support of republican winners.
Why keep rewarding losers that are also low EV states.
And if its a ‘R’ marked envelope, does it get counted or filed in the back room.
We never really know if it counts in a General Election.
I also don’t think the “parties” should be able to use the local government voting machines etc for elections, selections, whatever of their club members. They are using the election machines and local government processes to create an air of legitimacy to their activities.
“They check the signatures on the back of the envelope when you mail it in”
Well that sounds pretty foolproof... I’m pretty sure the liberals at least try this, I’m not sure how successful they are. They get pretty good traction out of intercepting the ballots of Alzheimer patients and people with mental disabilities, though.
But seriously, here’s my prediction if this passes:
If being independent let’s you vote in whichever primary amuses you, everyone will switch to independent. I’m not the only one who can do that math. Then, the Democrats will notice that this change fixes the fictional problem with the Republican caucuses but does nothing at all to help them with super-delegates completely cancelling out their votes. This will cause everyone to vote in the Republican primary.
Indeed, the appearance of legitimacy is given.
Facebook and social media destroys the myth when the CO state senators appear before their constituents wearing head-to-toe Cruz apparel and Cruz campaign buttons.
“IMHO, the primary should be open to the party registered republicans”
Absolutely. It seems stupid to reward people who register independent instead of forcing them to pick a party to vote in it’s primary.
I don’t find the problem to be fictional.
“fictional problem with the Republican caucuses”
At least not from some of the caucuses that I’ve analyzed. And I’m looking at history prior to 2016. I see Ron Paul and Rick Santorum being tricked and defrauded, and the folks being cheated out of their votes.
And the candidate is not necessarily the one always pulling the strings.
Some caucuses are like a ‘Daddy knows best’ system.’
Wyoming reduced their convention turnout by 55% this year!
Less than 3/10 of 1% of the registered voters participated. (920)
That’s shameful, right there.
If they keep reducing the participants, they can just have a caucus in lounge/bar next year.
“fictional problem with the Republican caucuses”
I’m only talking about CO. Every registered republican can go to the caucus discuss the candidates and vote. I go to the caucuses, the county assemblies and the state assemblies. The process is crazy complicated but not outright corrupted. It seems like they are set up to reward people who are willing to put more skin in the game.
I was a Ron Paul supporter in 2008 and 2012 and I didn’t feel like I was cheated out of anything in the CO caucuses and assemblies.
I don’t know what’s going on in WY. Why did their voting numbers go down so much? Why do they have so many delegates anyway? If you look around the country you see lots of weird things but I have been involved enough in CO politics to say I don’t think there is anything funny going on here.
That’s good to hear that you had a positive experience at the caucuses.
With all the resources available on the web to view a candidate and their platform, I’m not sure why I’d value the opinions of the state assemblymen or others that portend to speak for a candidate over my own. Fortunately, I’ve always lived in a state where we are allowed to vote. It is and easy process.
By making the caucus a multi-layered process to select a candidate, it eliminates at least 90% of the people right there. And this is by intent.
Actually we Trump supporters should be THANKING the GOPe of Colorado as their ‘cleverness’ would up giving Trump the ammo he needed to BLAST the GOPe to its foundations.
Two or three weeks ago Rush said that he suspected that Trump knew that if we tried to wine and dine the GOPe in Colorado, he’d wind up doing just as bad as he did. So instead Trump TOTALLY IGNORED Colorado throughout the campaign...until a week before their convention, and then had a FIELD DAY with them...leading directly to his ROUTING of Cruz in NY and then last night.
Although Rush didn’t say it, if Rush’s theory is true, then Trump’s Colorado move may go down as one of the MOST BRILLIANT plays in political history - the political equivalent of Bobby Fischer’s Queen Sacrifice in what is now known as The Game of the Century. It bodes very well for November.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Game_of_the_Century_%28chess%29
You are right Bob, CO gave Trump ammo.
After CO is when Ted took the nosedive. Donald Trump has plenty of friends in Colorado and they knew ahead of time that campaigning there would be worthless. Most of these delegates were pre-slated long ago.
Trump will need all of our eyes and ears to combat deceit in November. Democrats play all kinds of fun and games with elections. As a neophyte, he will need all the help he can get to stay ahead and prevent the groundwork for fraud.
bkmk
There is no “state assemblymen” the people at the assembly are elected at the precinct caucuses. A precinct is an area about the size of a two housing developments, so this person is not a politician, just one of your neighbors.
And yes, they are definitely emphasizing the input from people who are willing to think about the candidates enough to come out and discuss them intelligently with their neighbors. I’m glad you like voting alongside all the illegal aliens, dead people, stealth democrats and people who just checked a box because they got the ballot in the mail and got registered to vote when they signed up for welfare.
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