There will be at least three Republicans running in Colorado’s primary for the U.S. Senate seat after a judge Friday ordered the state’s top election official to include former state Rep. Jon Keyser, whose petition to make the ballot had earlier this week been deemed insufficient.

Denver District Court Judge Elizabeth Starrs ruled that otherwise valid signatures gathered by one of Keyser’s petition circulators should be counted, reversing a finding by Secretary of State Wayne Williams that disqualified hundreds of signatures because the circulator hadn’t updated his address in the state voter registration database after moving a few months ago.

In her order, Starrs wrote that the circulator, Colorado Springs resident Tyler Gonzalez, “did not have an improper motive in failing to update his voter registration address. The Colorado Election Laws are designed, in part, to eliminate fraud. No fraud was present here.”

Keyser’s attorneys argued at a Tuesday hearing that Williams should have counted 186 signatures gathered by Gonzalez in the 3rd Congressional District, where election officials said the candidate had fallen 86 signatures short.

A spokeswoman for Williams said the secretary of state would issue a “statement of sufficiency” for Keyser’s petitions Friday afternoon, the deadline to certify ballots to county clerks for the June 28 primary election.

The ruling gives new life to a candidate who has been pegged by national Republicans as a top recruit to challenge Democratic U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet.

Keyser joins El Paso County Commissioner Darryl Glenn, who won top-line in the primary at the Republican state assembly earlier this month, and Jack Graham, a former NFL quarterback and Colorado State University athletic director, who learned last week he had successfully petitioned onto the ballot.

Two other Republicans — businessman Robert Blaha and former Aurora City Councilman Ryan Frazier — on Thursday were notified they failed to make the primary ballot because they lacked enough valid signatures on their petitions, but their campaigns have suggested they plan to appeal the rulings.

Keyser, an Air Force Reserve officer and decorated veteran who served tours in Afghanistan and Iraq, resigned his state House seat when he announced his run in January, focusing his criticism of Bennet on national security matters and the Democrat’s support for the Iran nuclear deal.

“It’s a shame for Sen. Michael Bennet that the best days of his campaign will be remembered as the few days he falsely dreamed Jon Keyser was blocked from the ballot,” said Matt Connelly, the Keyser campaign’s spokesman. “Jon is a combat veteran of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and nothing will prevent him from holding Sen. Michael Bennet accountable for his cowardice on matters of national security and economic security.”

A spokesman for the Colorado Democratic Party responded by mocking the Keyser campaign and throwing in some jabs at the other candidates whose petitions were found insufficient.

“After being handpicked by the national Republican Party and blowing off grassroots Republicans, Jon Keyser had to sue his way onto the Republican primary ballot,” said Chris Meagher in a statement. “Now he’s back to limping through the primary with no momentum and practically no money, while Robert Blaha and Ryan Frazier prepare their own lawsuits to get back on the ballot.”

A spokeswoman for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, Sadie Weiner, said in a statement that Keyser’s path to the primary ballot was “a huge embarrassment to his campaign and to the national Republicans who hand-selected him after their top picks passed and who have touted his candidacy.”

— ernest@coloradostatesman.com