Colorado Republican Chairwoman Kristi Burton Brown wants state Republicans to decide whether an outside entity should run the El Paso County GOP’s upcoming officer elections.

Responding to what she described as “ongoing internal conflict” between Republicans in Colorado’s largest county, Burton Brown called a special meeting of the state GOP’s central committee for Jan. 31 in an email sent to committee members late Monday.

The county party is scheduled to elect a chair, vice chair, secretary and bonus members – based on top-ticket Republican votes received in the November election – to two-year terms on Feb. 11, part of the regular reorganization Colorado’s political parties undertake in odd-numbered years. The state party picks its own leadership at the end of March, with ballots cast by the newly elected county officers and bonus members, along with elected GOP officials.

As things stand, the El Paso County Republican Party’s leadership election will be run by two-term county chair Vickie Tonkins and her lieutenants, but under the proposal floated by Burton Brown, the state party could decide to substitute a “neutral party outside El Paso County” to conduct the election.

Burton said she decided to call the special meeting – which will be held online on the Zoom teleconference platform – after receiving a request submitted last week in a petition that expressed concerns Tonkins won’t operate the party election fairly.

“We need a county organization in El Paso County that will support our Republican nominees – not attack them,” read the petition, which was signed by nearly 100 of the state central committee’s roughly 460 members.

The state GOP formally censured Tonkins last month, asserting that she “flagrantly and intentionally violated her duty as County Chairman” by calling an emergency meeting of the county party’s governing body just days before the November election to condemn dozens of local Republicans who organized their own voter-contact operation. That group, which calls itself Peak Republicans, ran what amounts to a shadow county party, complete with its own office and volunteers.

Two years ago, the state GOP’s executive committee ordered the El Paso County GOP to hold a new election for party leaders, citing “irregularities” in the election overseen by Tonkins and her allies. Tonkins appealed the decision to the party’s larger central committee, which let the county party results stand.

Burton Brown stressed in the announcement and in an interview with Colorado Politics that she isn’t calling the meeting “to choose sides in El Paso County” or to insert the state party in the county party’s business.

“I want to be clear that this is not about personalities or preferences,” she said.

“This is not about the state party stepping in to govern a county party,” she added. “It’s about the integrity of the elections at their upcoming reorganizational meeting and letting the central committee decide how that meeting’s going to be run so that everyone can trust the results.”

In addition to asking the central committee to “establish procedures regarding the rules, execution, and conduct” of the county party election, Burton Brown also wants the state party to “determine the legally valid list” of the county party’s central committee. The second agenda item is in response to critics who charge that Tonkins has improperly installed dozens of supporters on the panel, effectively stacking the deck in the upcoming election.

Former state Rep. Lois Landgraf, a Colorado Springs Republican and one of the organizers behind Peak Republicans and the petition, told Colorado Politics on Tuesday that she’s “hopeful” the state committee will take the county election from Tonkins’ control.

“The bottom line is we want a fair, safe meeting in February,” Landgraf said. “We want one that follows the bylaws, follows Robert’s Rules of Order, follows rules of common decency, where the correct people are credentialed and people are treated with respect, and where everybody’s vote counts – just little things like that.”

She said county party meetings run by Tonkins and her crew have been harrowing for Republicans who don’t fall in line.

“I do not want to go to another meeting where I am told I should be put up against the wall and shot, or where somebody yanks the (microphone) out of my hand and grabs my arm,” she said, adding that she experienced both at meetings in the past year. “People shouldn’t be treated like that.”

Tonkins didn’t respond to a request for comment, but former state Rep. Dave Williams, a longtime Tonkins ally, dismissed the proposal as an attempt to silence Republicans who support Tonkins.

“There’s a small disgruntled faction within El Paso that is colluding with state GOP leadership to strip voting rights and disenfranchise faithful volunteers who chose to fill vacant party positions,” Williams said in a text message.

“What’s more troubling is that the state GOP, in the aftermath of historic losses, would even entertain the suicidal idea of shrinking our party membership just because the establishment knows it can’t win the county party election next month,” he added.

Landgraf said the party’s recent performance under Tonkins’ reign in El Paso County – traditionally, Colorado’s Republican stronghold and the largest reservoir of Republican votes in the state – should raise alarms for Republicans statewide, but not for the reasons Williams suggests.

In the November election, Democratic Gov. Jared Polis came within just over 3 percentage points of carrying El Paso County, turning in the best performance by a top-ticket Democrat in the county in memory. Additionally, Democrats increased their share of the county’s nine state House seats from two to three, marking the first time that’s happened in decades.

“We have to give people a reason to want to be a Republican,” Landgraf said. “Right now, they look at the party and think, ‘Why in the world would I want to do that?’ When any of us talk about what happens in a county executive committee meeting, people look at us and go, ‘Why would you want to be part of an organization like that?’ I think they’re absolutely right.”