AURORA | Eric Nelson, Democratic candidate for Colorado House District 42, failed to submit the required number of signatures to appear on the State Primary ballot in June, according to the Secretary of State’s Office.
Nelson’s campaign submitted 1,635 signatures to the Secretary of State, and 1,606 of those signatures were rejected, with only 29 accepted, according to state records.
“It’s unfortunate, it’s disappointing,” Nelson’s campaign director Jose Silva said. “But we, like many campaigns, have to sometimes pivot, and that’s what we’re going to do.”
Nelson said Thursday evening he was trying to take in the news and was unclear how so many rejected signatures would have been submitted.
Secretary of state officials said personnel did not recall a disqualification rate this high in recent memory.
To make the ballot, Nelson would have needed 1,000 valid signatures, or 30% of the votes cast in the last election, whichever is fewer, according to a statement from the Secretary of State.
State records show that of the 1,636 signatures submitted, more than 940 examined had no links to voter records in Colorado.
Nelson reported to state election officials that a national contractor, TouchStone, was his paid circulator for his signatures. The Washington DC-based company did not immediately return calls requesting comment.
“We instilled our trust in a third-party organization and company to assist with the petition gathering,” Silva said. “Obviously, the results of that speak for themselves.”
He said the relationship between Nelson’s campaign and the circulator have since “ceased” and that a non-disclosure and confidentiality agreement prevents him from commenting further at the time.
Silva said Nelson would attempt to go through an Arapahoe County March 3 Democratic Party caucus process to collect enough delegate support to still make the ballot.
Nelson served on the Aurora Public Schools board from 2013-2017. After launching an unsuccessful campaign for a seat in the Colorado House of Representatives in 2016, discrepancies in his public biography came to light and the board launched a formal investigation.
A report presented to the board found that Nelson had falsified much of the information on his resume. He did not have any of the four degrees he claimed to have, and several diplomas he provided were faked, the report said. He also represented himself as having been a decorated officer in the Air Force, but was only in active duty for two months in 1998 and did not receive any awards. Of the 40 organizations he listed himself as a member of, many could not be reached or said that he was not a member or only had minor involvement, the report said.
He was formally censured by the board but refused calls to step down. Then-Congressman Mike Coffman also urged the U.S. Attorney’s Office to investigate Nelson under the federal Stolen Valor Act for making false claims about military service.
Nelson began a campaign for the House District 42 seat two years ago, but withdrew from that.
Also running for the House District 42 seat are incumbent Democratic Rep. Mandy Lindsay and challengers Sarah Woodson and Megan Siffring.