Colorado’s Republican National Committee members are joining the chorus of GOP stalwarts urging the party’s central committee to reject a proposal to opt out of the primary election next year rather than allow unaffiliated voters to participate.

State Republicans decide Saturday whether to go along with voter-approved Proposition 108 and let voters who aren’t affiliated with a party cast ballots in Republican primary next June. Under a provision in the measure, either major party can “opt out” and instead nominate its candidates to the fall ballot through the caucus and assembly process – something Democrats say they didn’t give a second thought but Republicans have been debating all year.

“It is our current opinion that a decision to opt out of the primary would have a severely negative impact on the vitally important mid-term elections in 2018, but we plan to listen carefully to the presentations on Saturday before casting our vote,” Republican National Committeewoman Vera Ortegon and National Committeeman George Leing wrote in an email delivered by the Colorado GOP this week to members of the party’s state central committee.

State GOP Chairman Jeff Hays also sits on the Republican National Committee and has also made clear he opposes canceling the primary.

“We’re going to look at this thing as an opportunity, not a crisis,” he told Colorado Politics recently. “We feel it’s an opportunity to go win over some hearts and minds. That’s the way we’re approaching it.”

The state party has been distributing emails to central committee members arguing against opting out for a couple weeks, including missives from former Colorado Republican Party Chairman Dick Wadhams, U.S. Rep. Ken Buck, Denver County chair Jake Viano and Arapahoe County chair Rich Sokol.

Supporters of the proposal argue that any unaffiliated voter can change his or her registration to Republican in a matter of minutes and then vote in the primary but that it doesn’t make sense to let outsiders help pick the GOP’s nominees.

Ortegon and Leing, however, maintain that the alternative to holding a semi-open primary – a truly open one would allow members of one party to vote in another’s primary – would leave the state’s more than 1 million Republicans, as well as a slightly larger number of unaffiliated voters, without any direct say in the party’s nominees. (Supporters of the opt-out proposal say the GOP can open up its state assembly to many more Republicans than the roughly 5,000 delegates who attended last year’s and use it as a tool to recruit and involve voters.)

Recalling the hue and cry that arose last year when Republicans decided against holding a presidential straw poll at party caucuses, Ortegon and Leing wrote, “[I]magine the reaction to the full cancellation of the primary for all Republican candidates! As to independents, if the Colorado Democratic Party participates in the state-sponsored primary process while we opt out, the unaffiliated voters of our state will receive a message that the Democrats welcome their input on the selection of their candidates while we choose to bar them from participation. The potential impact could well be felt in 2018 if many of these voters feel shut out of the Republican Party and take out their anger on our candidates in a vital election year. We cannot take the risk of this outcome.”

At the beginning of September, Colorado had 3,351,785 active, registered voters, nearly evenly distributed among  Republicans, Democrats and unaffiliated voters, with a scattering belonging to the state’s minor political parties.

Three-quarters of the party’s state central committee’s members have to agree to cancel the primary, according to the ballot measure, which passed in November with roughly 53 percent of the vote. The committee meets Saturday morning at Colorado’s Finest High School of Choice – that’s its name – in Englewood. It’s made up of party officers from each of Colorado’s 64 counties, along with elected officials and “bonus” members awarded based on the number of votes for the top of the ticket in more populous counties.

The party is sponsoring a forum about the question Friday night at its annual fall fundraising dinner in Greenwood Village. Panelists include Adams County Republican Ben Nicholas, who petitioned party leadership to hold a vote on the issue, 2016 congressional nominee George Athanasopoulos, Wadhams and Secretary of State Wayne Williams. Radio host Jimmy Sengenberger is scheduled to moderate the discussion.