April 06, 2016 11:54 AM UTC

Petition Deadline Passes with Few Surprises

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• by: Colorado Pols

Monday was the deadline to submit petitions to the Secretary of State’s office in order to gain access to the June 28th Primary ballot. On Tuesday the SOS released the names of all candidates who had submitted petition signatures before the deadline, most of whom must now wait to see if they have collected enough valid signatures within the allotted period of time.

From a news release out of the Secretary’s office:

Candidates were allowed to begin collecting signatures on Feb. 1 after getting their petition formats approved by the Colorado Secretary of State. The petitions were due back to the office by 5 p.m. Monday.

The elections staff must complete the signature verification process by late April when primary ballots are set. Every single signature is checked.

“We take our responsibility very seriously,” Colorado Secretary of State Wayne Williams said. “We want to ensure everyone who turned in sufficient signatures is on the ballot so Colorado voters can make their choices.”

Here is the entire list of candidates who submitted petitions. Two candidates for the state legislature, Republicans Bob Gardner and Larry Liston, have already had their petitions approved and are cleared for the Primary.

Only two names on the list of were a bit of a surprise: Tom Lucero, a Republican running in HD-51 (Loveland-ish), is a former Chair of the Larimer County Republican Party and a failed congressional candidate in CD-4 who was stunned when he failed to gain ballot access through the caucus process a few weeks back. There was some question as to whether Lucero would continue forward after his devastating loss at the caucuses, but he ended up submitting his petition signatures on Monday.

One other petitioner caught our attention: Adams County District Attorney Dave Young, who was crushed at the JD-17 assembly in March by Caryn Datz. Young had been going back and forth as to whether he would try to petition on the ballot, and he ended up submitting signatures on Monday as well.