The Colorado GOP reportedly plans to convert their party primary into a caucus to include former President Donald Trump after the state’s Supreme Court kicked him off the primary ballot for allegedly leading an insurrection on January 6, 2021.
The Colorado Republican Party posted a response to Vivek Ramaswamy, who pledged to withdraw from the state’s primary if Trump was not on the ballot, as The Dallas Express reported.
“You won’t have to because we will withdraw from the Primary as a Party and convert to a pure caucus system if this is allowed to stand,” said the state party on its official X account.
In a caucus, the state’s Republicans would meet at a set time and place to choose their candidate based on an agreed-upon set of rules.
However, the Colorado Secretary of State’s office responded on Wednesday that it would not accept the Republicans’ attempt to defy the result of the court ruling and would take legal action, per The Colorado Sun.
“Colorado law does not allow a presidential primary election to be canceled at the request of a political party,” the statement said, per The Colorado Sun. “If the Colorado Republican Party attempts to withdraw from the presidential primary or ignore the results of the election, this would likely be a matter for the courts.”
The statement claimed that state law required “each political party shall use the results of the [presidential primary] election to allocate national delegate votes in accordance with the party’s state and national rules.”
If the Colorado GOP were to caucus and ignore the results of the primary, one group that might stand to challenge the results would be the voters who vote through the primary ballot, according to The Colorado Sun.
