This afternoon, Scott Gessler and the Colorado Secretary of State’s Office deemed the petition to recall the Democrat state Senator from Pueblo, Angela Giron, sufficient.

According to official numbers, 13,466 signatures to recall Giron were submitted to the Secretary of State on June 10 and only 818 of those signatures were rejected as invalid. This brought the total number of accepted signature entries to 12,648, over one thousand more than the 11,285 needed for the recall to move forward.

The impending special election for the recall of Giron comes at the heels of the recall against Colorado Senate President John Morse, also a Democrat, validated by the Secretary of State’s office just last week.

Giron, similar to Morse, faces the mounting challenge due to her advocacy for hard line gun control measures in the last session of the Colorado General Assembly.

Earlier this month, Giron also came under fire after a video was released of her supporters being paid in cash to hold signs and rally against the recall effort. After Giron claimed to have no knowledge of the man caught on tape, it was discovered that the individual was a donor to the campaign.

Recall efforts against Giron began over two months ago, just before the legislative session ended in early May.

Pueblo Freedom & Rights is the driving organization behind the recall. While Giron and her supporters have been spotted passing out postcards and flyers which claim that the recall efforts were funded by wealthy out of state interest groups, Victor Head, the spokesman for Pueblo Freedom & Rights, has gone on record and disagreed.

“She [Giron] received thousands of phone calls, thousands of people showed up to town hall meetings- all overwhelmingly against the gun control measuresand she still voted for them and then actually said she was happy to push back against her foes, which is her whole district,” Head said.

A fifteen day “challenge period” now ensues, which allows an individual or party in favor of Giron, or Giron herself, to contest the validated signatures and recall petition. If no challenge is made or the challenge fails, the special election is confirmed and a date is set.

Media Trackers Colorado reached out to Pueblo Freedom & Rights for the group’s reaction to the accepted petition.

When asked if the group expects a challenge of the recall, Victor Head replied that they “fully expect the same challenge that the Morse recall is currently facing.” Head continued, “I doubt much is going to come of it, but it is something I’m sure they feel just has to be done.”

Head also noted to Media Trackers that he believes any challenge by Giron or her supporters would be “fairly disingenuous, if not hypocritical on her part, because she was the one to so strongly advocate for the new liberal Colorado election law re-write a few months ago.”

HB 1303, which Giron voted for, allows for same day voter registration in Colorado and more lax voter registration oversight in the name of promoting greater election participation from citizens.

Head concluded, “Sen. Giron was just arguing that ‘everyone needs a voice’, so when her own constituents tell her that we don’t want her, how can she challenge that?”

Media Trackers Colorado’s attempt to contact Senator Giron were unsuccessful as no one from her office was available for comment by the time of publish.

This story was originally featured at Media Trackers Colorado.