Coroner Dr. Leon Kelly will face a challenger in the June Republican primary following Saturday’s El Paso County Assembly. 

Kelly received 31% of the vote – a percentage higher than the minimum needed to make the ballot.

His competitor, Dr. Rae Ann Weber, was a write-in candidate who received the majority of the vote after promising the crowd that she would be a “freedom doctor” who would never support COVID-19 mandates or improperly sign a COVID-19 death certificate.

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“I will never sign away your business, your children’s education or any of your constitutional freedoms,” she told the assembly.

Kelly said he never supported COVID-19 vaccine mandates. He also said he investigated deaths the state reported as being caused by COVID, and removed them from the data if they were improper.

While he volunteered to help with the public health response to COVID-19, his office’s mission is to work on determining the cause of sudden and violent deaths. 

The coroner does not have control over local COVID-19 mandates, and El Paso County never enacted its own local mandates. State mandates in effect earlier in the pandemic have been phased out. 

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Fourth Judicial District Attorney Michael Allen nominated Kelly for re-election and praised his abilities as a forensic pathologist and expert witness during criminal trials.

“Dr. Kelly gives the victims of violent crime a voice that demands to be heard in the courtroom,” he said. “The more we know what went wrong in these deaths, the more equipped we are to prevent these deaths in the future,” he said.

Weber, a family physician, noted that a coroner does not have to be forensic pathologist to do the job. She said she would provide proper oversight to the office and promised to investigate all deaths related to COVID-19 vaccines.

She is the co-founder of Family Care Center, an out-patient behavioral health care provider in town.

She told the crowd that she has received two complaints against her medical license during the pandemic for sharing “so-called medical misinformation.”

Weber has been active during the pandemic, advocating against masks and other measures, she said.

Colorado State Rep. Dave Williams backed Weber for her anti-mandate stances. 

“We need to throw out the COVID fear mongers,” he said.