Colorado’s unaffiliated voters can continue to participate in Republican primary elections, a federal judge ruled Friday, in the latest blow to the state GOP’s attempts to close its races to independents.
The ruling comes more than five months after the Colorado Republican Party filed a lawsuit seeking to invalidate Proposition 108, the 2016 ballot measure that opened up the state’s political primaries to unaffiliated voters.
The GOP had asked the court to void the measure as unconstitutional and to allow the party to more easily close its primaries while the lawsuit plays out. The ruling does not end the overall lawsuit, though it keeps the current system in place ahead of the state’s June primary elections — and it serves as an indication that the broader suit is unlikely to succeed.
The state’s presidential primaries are set for March 5. The GOP’s lawsuit didn’t challenge a separate ballot measure that allowed for unaffiliated participation in those primaries, too.
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