Two Republicans running for the U.S. Senate filed lawsuits late Monday asking a district court judge to order Colorado’s top election official to place them on the June primary ballot, arguing that they submitted enough signatures despite an earlier ruling that they came up short.

Colorado Springs businessman Robert Blaha and former Aurora City Councilman Ryan Frazier are hoping to join three other GOP candidates on the June 28 primary ballot. The two, filing jointly, obtained a court injunction on Friday ordering Secretary of State Wayne Williams to delay certifying a primary ballot until at least the end of the day Wednesday, in order to give them a chance to file challenges to an earlier Williams ruling that they hadn’t made the ballot.

Both campaigns expressed confidence in their chances.

“Thousands of Coloradans expressed an interest in seeing Robert Blaha on the ballot this June, and their voices should be heard,” said Blaha campaign spokeswoman Katey Price in a statement. “We look forward to a positive outcome affirming the voters’ right to choose.”

“We are fully committed to letting the process work itself out,” said Frazier campaign spokesman Joel DiGrado. “Our position is that we presented more than enough valid petitions and are fully prepared to win that argument in court.”

The clock is ticking. The state requires that county clerks send ballots to military and overseas voters by May 14, just 10 days after the injunction expires — potentially a tight schedule because printers are awaiting the go-ahead from election officials before producing hundreds of thousands of mail ballots.

Meanwhile, a liberal advocacy group said it plans to unveil on Tuesday a list of signatures submitted by another Republican Senate candidate it claims should be ruled invalid, hinting at yet another court challenge in the ongoing tussle over who gets to challenge Democratic U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet in the fall.

El Paso County Commissioner Darryl Glenn earned a spot at the state GOP assembly, and former Colorado State University athletic director Jack Graham turned in enough signatures — at least 1,500 from each of the state’s seven congressional districts — to qualify for the ballot. Just days ago, former state Rep. Jon Keyser, R-Morrison, won a lawsuit to overturn an earlier ruling by the secretary of state’s office that Keyser failed to submit enough signatures.

Blaha and Frazier are asking a Denver District Court judge to allow in hundreds of signatures based on technical mistakes on their petitions, pointing to statutes and court decisions that set “substantial compliance, as the standard for state election law. Frazier is also asking a judge to throw out a rule forbidding a registered voter from signing more than one candidate’s petition for the same office.

Blaha turned in 17,844 signatures by the April 4 deadline, but only 10,507 were considered valid by state election officials. He fell short of that required total in three congressional districts, officials said. Blaha was short 151 signatures in the 1st Congressional District, 169 signatures in the 3rd Congressional District and 49 signatures in the 6th Congressional District.

Frazier turned in more signatures and more were deemed valid, with 11,108 OK’d out of 18,581 submitted, but he didn’t have enough signatures in four congressional districts, according to the secretary of state’s office. Frazier was short 52 signatures short in the 1st Congressional District, six signatures short in the 2nd Congressional District, 306 signatures short in the 3rd Congressional District and 44 short in the 6th Congressional District.

Former Secretary of State Scott Gessler — Williams’s immediate predecessor in the office — is one of the attorneys handling Frazier’s appeal, along with former Deputy Attorney General Geoffrey Blue.

A combined hearing on both Blaha’s and Frazier’s lawsuits is set for Tuesday morning.

While he declined to say whether the group plans to file a legal challenge to last week’s ruling that Keyser had qualified for the primary, ProgressNow Colorado political director Alan Franklin suggested that yet another lawsuit might be in the offing when he announced Monday afternoon that the liberal group had discovered numerous signatures on Keyser’s petitions “that were apparently missed by the Secretary of State.”

Noting that Keyser qualified for the ballot with just 20 signatures to spare in one congressional district, that number of “invalid petition signatures could mean the difference between Keyser making or missing the 2016 ballot,” Franklin maintained.

“We are running out of time to ensure the rules are applied equally to every candidate for office in Colorado, and it is critical that we get this right,” he said in a statement. “Colorado voters deserve to know that all candidates are following the same rules.”

In addition to asking for a ruling putting him on the ballot, Frazier is also seeking attorney fees, because he’s making a constitutional challenge to Colorado law and regulations governing the petition process. Pointing to state and federal court decisions, Frazier alleges the requirement that only registered Colorado voters — affiliated with the same party as the candidate — may circulate petitions violates both the First and 14th amendments. He also argues that only allowing a voter to sign a single petition for the same office violates the same constitutional provisions by restricting and burdening both voters and candidates.

— ernest@coloradostatesman.com