November 30, 2022 02:24 PM UTC

Colorado GOP and Kristi Burton Brown Beclown Themselves

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• by: Colorado Pols

THURSDAY UPDATE: Adam Frisch claps back as the mandatory recall he couldn’t stop if he wanted to moves forward:

I want to share an update following yesterday’s Secretary of State announcement of a mandatory recount. Since the results were so close, we have been expecting this as a mandatory part of Colorado’s voting process. The recount is one of the measures that protects and helps ensure the sanctity of Colorado elections and the decision to conduct a recount is (rightfully so) not influenced by any campaign or candidate. I have said from the beginning that I will honor the certified results of the Colorado Secretary of State, and Coloradans deserve to have this legally mandated process take place…

The race for Colorado’s 3rd Congressional District has become the closest election in the nation this year, and folks have been shocked, especially given this district’s 9 point Republican advantage. With support from so many of you, my team and I are very proud of the race we ran. It clearly shows a rejection of extremism and a lack of focus by the incumbent on the citizens of Western & Southern Colorado by Democrats, Independents, and Republicans alike.

My concession remains sincere but has no legal implications – under no circumstances did I want it to stop (which it legally cannot) this recount of votes. If, by some slight chance, there is a big enough vote swing to put us in the lead after the recount, we would be certified the winner and sworn into congress on January 3rd. But the reality is we do not expect the results of this election to change with the recount.

In short, Republicans came out against election integrity and showed their backsides in the process. And it’s another reminder that Lauren Boebert barely held on to her “safe” seat.

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Kristi Burton Brown, the Chairwoman of the Colorado Republican Party and the former leader of a local militia group, is bound and determined to do everything in her power to make a complete ass of herself and whatever remains of the Colorado GOP.

Burton Brown (KBB) is theoretically an attorney who has proven as inept at interpreting campaign finance laws and reading Colorado statutes as she is at winning elections. As the State GOP Chairperson, KBB just oversaw the worst election performance by the Republican Party in modern Colorado history. Right-wing activists are nipping at KBB’s heels, but she’s been spending most of her time this week preparing for an absolutely ridiculous demand relating to Congressperson Lauren Boebert, for whom KBB once served as a “policy adviser” (during Boebert’s 2020 campaign).

The Colorado Republican Party sent out the following statement from KBB today demanding that Democratic candidate Adam Frisch stop a mandatory recount in Congressional District 3…even though Frisch has no ability to do any such thing:

According to KBB, Frisch “has the unilateral power to prevent wasting Colorado taxpayer money on a frivolous recount if he would just do the honorable thing and withdraw from the race. So far he has refused to do that.”

WHUT?

Frisch should “withdraw” from a race that has already concluded? The 2022 election is over. All of the votes have been cast. Unless KBB is asserting that Frisch could travel back in time and withdraw as the Democratic nominee in CO-03 BEFORE November 8, 2022, this demand has no merit whatsoever.

But wait! It gets even dumber:

“A recount will be expensive — which is why Frisch is not asking his supporters to donate to it. Rather, be is sticking that bill to the Colorado taxpayers. If recounted by voting machines, the recount effort is estimated to cost taxpayers between $100,000 and $300,000. If recounted by hand, the recount is estimated to conservatively cost taxpayers between $1 million and $3 million.”

Because the final vote margin between Boebert and Frisch is between one-half of one percent of the highest vote cast, a recount IS MANDATORY UNDER COLORADO LAW. Also, all recounts are conducted by machines; Colorado does not do hand recounts, despite what KBB says in the paragraph above. Frisch has nothing to do with this recount, which would be required to take place even if he got hit by a bus this evening. If the situation was reversed, no one would dare suggest that Boebert try to stop this automatic recount, which she would of course demand proceed to the very end. Wouldn’t Boebert herself want to remove all doubt?

But don’t take our word for it. Here’s what it says via Colorado Revised Statute 1-10.5-101:

(b) A recount of any election contest shall be held if the difference between the highest number of votes cast in that election contest and the next highest number of votes cast in that election contest is less than or equal to one-half of one percent of the highest vote cast in that election contest. If there is more than one person to be elected in an election contest, a recount shall be held if the difference between the votes cast for the candidate who won the election with the least votes and the candidate who lost the election with the most votes is less than or equal to one-half of one percent of the votes cast for the candidate who won the election with the least votes. A recount shall occur only after the canvass board certifies the original vote count. [Pols emphasis]

Frisch has already conceded the CO-03 race to Boebert. Nobody is claiming otherwise, and nobody expects the outcome to change following a recount. With that said, in an election this close a mandatory recount “shall”–not “may”–be completed in order to ensure the accuracy of the election. Why would any Republican who claims to care about “election integrity” want to interfere with an automatic recount?

Colorado Republicans will elect a new Chair early next year. It might literally be impossible for the GOP to do worse than Kristi Burton Brown. Brown has a remarkable way of guilelessly exposing her party’s many contradictions.