On April 25, a bill to establish a Colorado presidential primary was introduced by Representative Dominick Moreno (D-Commerce City) and Tim Dore (R-Elizabeth). Under current law, Colorado uses caucuses. Here is the text of HB 1454.
The bill would let the Governor choose any Tuesday in March for the presidential primary date. Only parties that polled at least 20% for President in the last election could have a presidential primary. Candidates would need 1,500 signatures of party members; and in addition they would need to have raised enough campaign funds to theoretically qualify for primary season matching funds ($5,000 in each of 20 states). It is not clear how the Secretary of State of Colorado would know whether that qualification has been met.
Independent voters could vote in a presidential primary. By asking for a presidential primary ballot, they would be deemed to be members of that party, but their party membership would automatically expire a few weeks after the primary.
The temporary affiliation procedure applies to both presidential primaries and state primaries. I wonder if it will be stripped out.
Colorado should adopt Top 2.
Twenty percent? What kind of idiots do they take us for? Well, (checks current mainstream poll numbers), never mind, but not all of us are that stupid. It basically makes it de facto that only the Democrats and Republicans are entitled to a primary in Colorado. Heck, even Illinois isn’t that bad when it comes to primaries, they only require 5%, and that can include Congressional district Establishment of parties based on vote totals for the House.
And Jim Riley, no. We don’t need a de facto ban on third parties in the general election either.
What we really need is proportional representation and Ranked Choice voting.
Correction, the comment about Illinois Congressional Districts only includes primaries for House elections and election for precinct committeeman (I just got off work, and I’m still rather tired; cut me some slack…). But the 5% statewide requirement in order to have a presidential primary in Illinois is still far less onerous than Colorado’s proposed requirement, and still doable given the success of the Illinois Green Party in 2006.