On December 19, the Colorado Supreme Court ruled 4-3 that former President Donald Trump cannot appear on the March 2024 Colorado Republican presidential primary. It also said write-ins for him cannot be counted. Anderson v Griswold, 2023cv-32577. The majority opinion is 132 pages and there are three dissents. One is 25 pages, one is 43 pages, and one is eleven pages. See it here.
The Court stayed its own opinion until January 4, probably because it expects Trump to file an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. Assuming he does appeal, and the U.S. Supreme Court takes the case, that will be the first ballot access case the court has accepted since it heard State Board of Elections v Lopez-Torres, which was heard in 2008 and concerned primary ballot access in New York for candidates for delegate to party judicial nominating conventions. In that case the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against the candidate and in favor of the state.
The Colorado Supreme Court majority says that it would be very bad if states were forced to print the names of unqualified cndidates on their ballots, without noting that Colorado twice printed the name of under-age candidates for president or vice-president on the general election ballot (Linda Jenness in 1972 and James B. Cranfill in 1892).
On page 31 the majority opinion says, “Voters no longer choose between slates of electors on Election Day. Instead, they vote for presidential candidates who serve as proxies for their pledged electors.” Logically, there is no difference between voters voting for one set of competing slates of presidential electors on election day, and the Court’s statement that voters vote for presidential candidates who serve as proxies for their electors. The majority’s sentence is meaningless.
