Today, the Supreme Court punted on the Frazier ballot dilemma. It gave him 49 signatures, but sent the case back down to lower court for consideration. Here’s the gist of it from ABC Channel 7:
“Tuesday, the court ruled that 49 of those signatures should be accepted, including 45 collected by a man who left his own apartment number off of the petition. The court ruled the signature collector met the standard of substantial compliance needed and accepted those signatures.
“That portion of the ruling leaves Frazier 30 signatures shy of qualifying as a candidate.
“The fate of 51 of 68 additional signatures tossed out by the Secretary of State are now back in the hands of the district court. Most of those signatures were tossed out by the Secretary of State’s office due to incorrect or incomplete voter information. At a hearing earlier this month, Frazier’s campaign presented testimony that 51 of those signatures should be accepted.”
While Frazier inched his way toward his signatures counting, he is waiting on the fate of 51 signatures to be decided in district court, which must rule before Friday at 5 p.m. Frazier was one of the candidates whose signatures were deemed insufficient to get on the ballot. He has been in court since. Because ballots needed to go to print, a judge ruled that Frazier would appear on the ballot, but the courts would determine whether his votes would count.
Frazier joins Robert Blaha, Jon Keyser, Jack Graham and Darryl Glenn in vying to unseat the fragile U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet.