Former state Rep. Jon Keyser took Secretary of State Wayne Williams to court Tuesday afternoon, asking a judge to overturn a ruling announced the day before that Keyser lacked a sufficient number of signatures to make the Republican primary ballot in the U.S. Senate race.

Based on a review of Keyser’s initial court filings, the attorney who represented the last major Colorado candidate to successfully challenge a ruling of insufficient petition signatures told The Colorado Statesman that Keyser’s case looked like a “slam dunk.”

On Monday, Williams informed Keyser that the candidate’s nominating petitions came up 86 signatures short in the 3rd Congressional District — Colorado law requires major party Senate candidates to turn in 1,500 valid signatures from each of the state’s seven congressional districts — and wouldn’t be on the June 28 ballot. Keyser’s campaign almost immediately vowed to challenge the ruling in Denver District Court, claiming that the candidate had more than enough valid signatures and belonged on the ballot.

Keyser submitted 16,067 signatures to the secretary of state’s office, which determined that 11,436 were valid. According to filings with the Federal Election Commission, Keyser’s campaign paid $140,250 to Clear Creek Strategies through the end of March for gathering petition signatures.

If Keyser wins his legal challenge, he’ll join El Paso County Commissioner Darryl Glenn and Fort Collins businessman Jack Graham on the primary ballot to challenge Democratic U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet in the fall. Two other Republicans, Colorado Springs businessman Robert Blaha and former Aurora City Councilman Ryan Frazier, have also submitted petitions for the primary ballot. The secretary of state’s office is reviewing those signatures, and a spokeswoman for Williams has said to expect rulings within the next few days.

Although he had five days to mount a legal challenge, Keyser’s attorneys filed court documents and were headed for an expedited hearing less than 24 hours after the secretary of state’s ruling — in part, a Williams spokeswoman said, because there’s a looming deadline at the end of the week to certify the primary ballot.

Lawyers for Keyser argue in court filings that a Colorado Springs man named Tyler Gonzalez, who gathered hundreds of signatures for Keyser, failed to update his address on voter registration records when he moved within the city but had nonetheless “substantially complied with all relevant requirements,” including being registered to vote as a Republican, when he circulated petitions. Based on that, Keyser lawyers argue, all 238 otherwise valid signatures collected by Gonzalez from voters in the 3rd Congressional District ought to count.

It’s similar to arguments made by attorney Mario Nicolais, who represented Republican Eric Weissmann when the Boulder businessman was trying to get on the primary ballot to run for Congress in 2012. A judge ruled that Weissmann had collected enough signatures despite clerical and technical errors involving petition circulators that had led to hundreds of signatures being ruled invalid. (Weissmann lost the 2nd Congressional District primary to state Sen. Kevin Lundberg, R-Berthoud, who went on to lose to the incumbent, Democratic U.S. Rep. Jared Polis.)

“The odds of Keyser getting the additional 86 signatures he needs seem very good,” said Nicolais, who contributes a column on legal matters to The Statesman. “Based on Tyler Gonzalez’s affidavit, that he has been a registered Colorado Republican the entire time, this should be a slam dunk for Keyser.”

The Colorado Democratic Party intervened in the Weissmann case, arguing that dozens of signatures ruled valid by the secretary of state’s office should have been thrown out, but the judge in that case told the Democrats’ executive director — state Rep. Alec Garnett, D-Denver, who held the party position before winning election to the Legislature — that he would give no weight to his testimony.

A spokesman for the Colorado Democrats said Tuesday afternoon that party officials were reviewing the filings by Keyser’s attorneys but hadn’t determined whether to get involved.

— ernest@coloradostatesman.com