(COLORADO) — Former President Donald J. Trump could still appear on Colorado’s presidential primary ballot, even after the state’s top court in a landmark ruling found the 14th Amendment’s insurrection ban makes him ineligible. 

Trump is expected to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, a move that would automatically pause his disqualification.  

Meanwhile, Colorado is set to finalize its primary ballot in just days.  

The Colorado Republican Party is already making moves to get former President Trump back on the state ballot. It comes after Tuesday’s Dec. 19 close 4-3 ruling by the Colorado Supreme Court to block Trump from appearing on the primary ballot.

Trump is expected to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, and the next phase of the case will dictate Trump’s future on the general election ballot in November and those impacts could stretch nationwide.

Colorado’s highest court removed the former president from the state’s presidential primary ballot under the U.S. Constitution’s insurrection clause. It sets up a likely showdown in the nation’s highest court to decide whether the front-runner for the Republican Party nomination can remain in the race.

“This is an outrageous ruling,” Dave Williams, Chairman of the Colorado Republican Party explained. “It undermines our democratic processes, it undermines free and fair elections, and it violates due process rights. It’s a travesty of justice.”

Regardless of what happens with the U.S. Supreme Court, the Colorado Republican Party is moving to withdraw from the state’s primary in March and go to a caucus system instead.

“Instead of having a Super Tuesday primary ballot where a ballot would be put in your mailbox, what we are going to be telling voters is that you need to go to your precinct caucus on Caucus Night which is March 7 and you are then going to elect people who are going to support your preferred candidate,” Williams said.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the political aisle, Progress Now Colorado, the state’s largest multi-issue progressive advocacy organization, is applauding the court’s decision.

“Republicans have already been trying to figure out how to simply avoid the primary or caucus process in Colorado anyway with the current chairs pledged to try and subvert the whole primary and caucus system and simply endorse Donald Trump for president,” Sara Loflin, Executive Director of Progress Now Colorado explained. “I guess to me, there’s a real disconnect when I hear them talk about being literalists when it comes to the Second Amendment and when it comes to being literalists around First Amendment rights, but then other amendments within the constitution are subject to their interpretation, that doesn’t quite work.”

Election leaders said the issues must be settled by Jan. 4, the deadline for the state to print it’s presidential primary ballot is Jan. 5. If there isn’t a decision by then, Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold said Trump will not be on the ballot.

“This is beyond Democrat versus Republican,” Williams said. “This is liberty versus tyranny, this is our freedom versus someone telling us who we can and cannot vote for, that’s un-American. I don’t care if you’re a Democrat or if you’re a Republican, everyone should be shocked by this.”

“They talk about the Democratic process, these are the same people who wanted to ignore that very process in 2020,” Loflin explained. “I find it pretty ironic and out of touch with the state of Colorado we saw last election and we have taken some interest in the fact that people like Congresswoman Lauren Boebert, as well as the Republic PartyCchair Dave Williams, seem to blatantly ignore and remain blatantly out of touch with everybody except in Colorado, except for the most extreme parts of their party.”

FOX21 reached out to Congresswoman Boebert to weigh in on the Colorado Supreme Court ruling on Trump.

“With (Tuesday’s) ruling, the leftists on the Colorado Supreme Court have participated in extreme judicial activism that is designed to suppress the vote and voices of hundreds of thousands of Coloradans. This is absolutely unacceptable. I am confident the U.S. Supreme Court will remedy this horrible decision so Coloradans will have the right to cast their ballot for our 45th and 47th President, Donald J. Trump.”

Lauren Boebert, Congresswoman for the U.S. House of Representatives (CO-3)

The Colorado Secretary of State’s office said at this time Trump has not filed the proper paperwork to be an eligible write-in candidate, meaning votes would not be counted using that method. The Secretary’s office added if the U.S. Supreme Court does not overturn the decision voters could not write in Trump as their candidate.