On Oct. 2, the Colorado Supreme Court amended Colorado Rule of Civil Procedure 100 to add a new section on statements of contests specifically for presidential electors.
The amended rule requires a qualified elector who wishes to contest the election of someone to the office of presidential elector to do so within 24 days after the general election. The statement of contest must be filed in the office of Colorado’s Secretary of State, and the statement must have the name of the contestor, name of the contestee, the office, the time of the election and the particular cause of contest.
Within the same 24 days, the contestor or someone representing the contestor, must also file a petition pursuant to Colorado Rule of Civil Procedure 100 in the office of the clerk of the Colorado Supreme Court.
The amended rule also requires the Colorado Supreme Court to prioritize the contest over all regular business of the court. The amended rule also strikes the language regarding presidential electors from the old section.
The other change to the rule is striking the word “trial” and replacing it with “determination.” The old rule required the clerk to issue a summons. Now, the court will hear and determine the case in a summary manner without the intervention of a jury.
The change in the rule comes three months after a 2024 law, passed in April by the Colorado Legislature, made it explicitly illegal to submit a false slate of electors in the state.
Another legal ruling relating to the votes of presidential electors in Colorado came in 2020, when the U.S. Supreme Court reversed the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals’ judgment affirming the state’s decision to remove Micheal Baca and nullify his vote for John Kasich in 2016 was unconstitutional.
Colorado is currently entitled to 10 presidential electors, and each party nominates its presidential electors during state party conventions. State law requires the 10 presidential electors selected to vote for the presidential and vice presidential candidates who won the state vote in Colorado’s general election.
Under current federal law, there are only two grounds for objection to a state’s electoral votes: the electors weren’t lawfully certified or that the vote by one or more electors wasn’t regularly given, according to the National Archives.
In the 2020 election, the electoral votes of several states were contested. Only two of the state electoral votes that were contested advanced to a vote, Arizona and Pennsylvania. Both challenges were rejected by the U.S. House of Representatives and U.S. Senate.