Secretary of State Scott Gessler filed suit Tuesday against El Paso County Clerk & Recorder Wayne Williams, who canceled the county’s Democratic and American Constitution parties’ primaries Friday.
Gessler believes if any party has a primary, then all primaries must be conducted. Williams believes the 2009 law allows a Clerk to cancel a party’s primary election while still conducting another party’s primary. The Republican primary is June 26.
Williams said the county will save approximately $68,000 by canceling the primaries and he intends to spend that on “Ballot on Demand Printers to improve our Early Voting proess this November, which is a direct benefit to our citizens. We want to spend the resources for the election that matters — not on uncontested races where there is no decision to be made.”
Uncontested candidates in primaries advance to November’s general election whether there is a primary or not, Williams said.
Mr. Williams made a good decision from a business standpoint. Alas government is not a business. In the case of an election it looks bad for a member of party “A” to cancel the primary for parties “B” and “C”. Seems the more sensible route was to ask all the parties to vote on the same day for the sake of saving taxpayers money.
Can’t help but wonder if it was the other way around, would the El Paso County Clerk actually cancel a Republican primary??? I doubt it. That would be hard to believe!