In the first day of testimony in Weld District Court Tuesday, a former Colorado GOP chairman accused of committing voter fraud blamed a diabetic blackout for his filling out his ex-wife’s ballot during the 2016 election.

Steve Curtis, 57, who from 1997-99 served as chairman of the Colorado Republican Party, is charged with one count of voter fraud and one count of forgery after prosecutors say he filled out and mailed in the ballot of his ex-wife, Kelly Curtis, from his Firestone home in fall 2016. After a day of jury selection Monday, attorneys delivered their opening arguments in his trial about 11 a.m. Tuesday, during which Curtis’ attorney, Christopher Gregory, told the jury Curtis had lived with type one diabetes for about 30 years, and he was prone to serious diabetic episodes.

“He has a notoriously bad history of monitoring and controlling his blood sugar,” Gregory said.

Curtis, who since his political career has hosted a talk show on the conservative Aurora radio station KLZ-AM 560, remained stoic behind a set of sunglasses as his ex-wife, the prosecution’s first witness, took the stand. She and Curtis had only been married for nine months, she said, during 2015. During that time, she lived with him at his house in Firestone, and she registered to vote at that address.

Read the full story at GreeleyTribune.com.