Jon Keyser falls 86 signatures short of making Senate primary ballot

DENVER, April 25, 2016 -- Former state Rep. Jon Keyser's petition to appear on the Republican primary ballot for U.S. Senate has been declared insufficient, Colorado Secretary of State Wayne Williams announced today.

Keyser was required to gather 1,500 valid signatures from Republican voters in each of Colorado's seven congressional districts for a total of 10,500 signatures. He came up 86 signatures short in Congressional District 3.

Keyser submitted 16,067 petition signatures to the Secretary of State's office, which began a line-by-line review of the signatures. Of that 11,436 were deemed valid.

His campaign has five days to protest the decision.

Keyser is one of four Republicans who submitted petition signatures to try to get on the June 28 primary ballot. Williams last week announced that Jack Graham, the former athletic director at Colorado State University, made the ballot. Signatures are still being tabulated for the other Senate hopefuls, Robert Blaha and Ryan Frazier. The results are expected this week.

Already on the GOP ballot for Senate is El Paso County Commissioner Darryl Glenn, who received 70 percent of the delegate vote at the Republican state assembly April 9. The incumbent, Michael Bennet, was nominated at the Democratic assembly April 16 and is unopposed in his primary.

The signature breakdown for Keyser for each congressional district is included in the attachment.

Statement of Insufficiency - Keyser (PDF)