Colorado: No evidence 5,000 Colorado voters who unregistered were ineligible to vote, secretary of state says |

There is no evidence any of the more than 5,000 Colorado voters who have withdrawn their registrations following the Trump administration’s request for voter information were ineligible to participate in elections, Secretary of State Wayne Williams said Thursday. “It’s my hope that citizens who withdrew their registration will re-register, particularly once they realize that no confidential information will be provided and that the parties and presidential candidates already have the same publicly available information from the 2016 election cycle,” Williams said in a written statement. “Clearly we wouldn’t be asking them to re-register if we didn’t believe they were eligible.” Williams’ remarks come as his office prepares in the coming days to send publicly available voter data — including names, addresses, party affiliations and birth years — to the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity. Julia Sunny, a spokeswoman for Williams, said the information is slated to be submitted by Monday night.

Colorado: State to require advanced post-election audits | Politco

Colorado on Monday said it will become the first state to regularly conduct a sophisticated post-election audit that cybersecurity experts have long called necessary for ensuring hackers aren’t meddling with vote tallies. The procedure — known as a “risk-limiting” audit — allows officials to double-check a sample of paper ballots against digital tallies to determine whether results were tabulated correctly. The election security firm Free & Fair will design the auditing software for Colorado, and the state will make the technology available for other states to modify for their own use. The audit will allow Colorado to say, “with a high level of statistical probability that has never existed before,” that official election results have not been manipulated, said Colorado Secretary of State Wayne Williams in a statement.

Colorado: State hires startup to help audit digital election results | The Hill

The state of Colorado is moving to audit future digital election results, hiring a Portland-based startup to develop software to help ensure that electronic vote tallies are accurate. The startup Free & Fair announced on Monday that it had been selected by the state to develop a software system for state and local election officials to conduct what are called “risk-limiting audits.” A risk-limiting audit, or RLA, is a method that checks election outcomes by comparing a random sample of paper ballots to the accompanying digital versions. The development comes amid deepening fears on Capitol Hill about the possibility of foreign interference in future elections, following Russia’s use of cyberattacks and disinformation to influence the 2016 presidential election. According to the U.S. intelligence community, Moscow’s efforts also included targeting state and local election systems.

Colorado: Wayne Williams responds to Donald Trump’s voter election commission | The Denver Post

Colorado Secretary of State Wayne Williams told the Trump administration in a letter dated Friday that the state’s election system works well and that a blanket request for voter information isn’t an effective way to seek out fraud. Williams’ nine-page response to President Donald Trump’s election integrity commission includes several recommendations to improve elections and suggests that it look elsewhere in its mission to uncover wrongdoing. “While this data may serve a purpose,” Williams wrote in his letter to the commission Friday, “a single request for data that lacks the non-public data necessary to accurately match voters across states can’t be used to effectively assess the accuracy of voter rolls.”

Colorado: More than 3,000 Colorado voters cancel registrations | The Denver Post

Nearly 3,400 Coloradans canceled their voter registrations in the wake of the Trump administration’s request for voter info, the Secretary of State’s Office confirmed Thursday, providing the first statewide glimpse at the extent of the withdrawals. The 3,394 cancellations represent a vanishingly small percentage of the electorate — 0.09 percent of the state’s 3.7 million registered voters. But the figure is striking nonetheless, with some county election officials reporting that they’ve never seen anything quite like it in their careers. The withdrawals began in earnest earlier this month, after a presidential advisory commission on election integrity requested publicly available voter information from all 50 states.

Colorado: Hundreds withdraw Colorado voter registrations in response to compliance with commission request | The Denver Channel

At least two Colorado county clerks say they’ve seen a large increase in the number of people who have withdrawn their state voter registration since Colorado Secretary of State Wayne Williams said he would send the Trump administration’s election integrity commission some voter-roll information in accordance with state law. Alton Dillard, a spokesperson for the Denver Elections Division, said 180 people have withdrawn their registration in the county since July 3. When compared to the eight people who withdrew their registration from June 26-29, it marks a 2,150 percent increase, according to Dillard.

Colorado: Elections head will withhold confidential data from White House commission | Colorado Springs Gazette

Colorado Secretary of State Wayne Williams said Thursday he plans to fulfill a White House commission’s request for detailed state voter data by providing the same public information that would be available to anyone who asks. However, if information that’s considered confidential is requested, it’ll be held back, he said. Williams and all other secretaries of state in the country received a letter Wednesday detailing the request from Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, a co-chair of the bipartisan Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity. President Donald Trump created the commission last month to examine vulnerabilities in election systems “that could lead to improper voter registrations, improper voting, fraudulent voter registrations and fraudulent voting.”

Colorado: Remember the faithless electors? Colorado secretary of state wants to bolster rules banning them | Denver Post

Nearly six months after the Colorado statehouse became the unlikely stage for a dramatic attempt to deny Donald Trump the presidency, Colorado Secretary of State Wayne Williams is looking to prevent a repeat performance of last year’s Electoral College theatrics. A proposed policy change would require Colorado presidential electors to take an oath swearing to back the winner of the state’s popular vote or be replaced by someone who will. The rule parallels an emergency protocol adopted in December that was aimed at defusing a planned Electoral College revolt led in part by Colorado’s Democratic electors.

Colorado: Open and presidential primaries are now the law in Colorado | Denver Business Journal

The mechanisms are in place for Colorado to have an open primary next year and a presidential primary in 2020. Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper on Thursday signed into law Senate Bill 305, giving direction to county clerks on how to conduct the elections that are new or revived in this state. Up until now, primary elections have been restricted to registered members of political parties, and Colorado has been in the minority of states that chooses its presidential party nominees via a caucus system where residents must be registered with the party and attend meetings.

Colorado: Open primary bill advances, without provision linking voters to parties | The Denver Post

A measure to implement Colorado’s new open primaries cleared the Colorado Senate and a House committee in rapid succession Monday, after lawmakers reached a late deal tweaking a controversial provision that would ask independent voters to declare a party preference. With the changes, the path now seems clear for Senate Bill 305 to become law. But it would retain a few key, disputed pieces from the original measure: unaffiliated voters still will be asked before the election if they prefer one party’s ballot to the other, and the party primary they choose to vote in still will be a matter of public record. When the measure was introduced, it immediately was assailed by supporters of open primaries, including the Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce and Let Colorado Vote, who complained that it would undermine what Colorado voters intended when they passed two ballot measures opening the state’s party primaries to unaffiliated voters.

Colorado: Unaffiliated voter bill raises questions | Grand Junction Sentinel

If unaffiliated voters designate a preference in which major parties’ primary they want to cast a ballot without actually joining that party, they would be tagged as someone who voted in that political primary under a bill that is racing through the Colorado Legislature. Some county clerks say that provision in SB305, a bill that was introduced only last Wednesday and is being fast-tracked, flies in the face of the ballot question voters overwhelmingly approved last fall that allows unaffiliated voters to cast ballots in the party primary races without having to declare affiliation with that party. The bill, which won preliminary approval in the Colorado Senate on Friday, calls for sending voters two ballots during a primary election, with instructions to return only one.

Colorado: Unaffiliated? You can vote in Colorado’s 2018 party primaries. But should the party you choose be public information? | The Colorado Independent

Next year, unaffiliated voters —the state’s largest voting bloc—for the first time will be able to help choose the Democratic or Republican nominee in a Colorado governor’s race while still remaining unaffiliated. That’s because voters last year passed a ballot measure allowing those who choose not to join a political party to participate in the party primaries. Unaffiliated voters, however, can only pick one primary to vote in— they can’t vote in both.
And here’s something those non-party people should know: The primary they choose could become public information. Colorado’s Republican secretary of state, Wayne Williams, is pushing for such disclosure as he develops rules to implement the new law before the 2018 statewide gubernatorial primaries. He says such transparency is about voter integrity.

Colorado: Critics blast plan to track unaffiliated voters casting ballots in Colorado’s party primaries | The Denver Post

A proposal backed by the Colorado secretary of state to track which primaries independents vote in is drawing fire from critics who say it could undermine the intent of two initiatives that opened party primary elections to unaffiliated voters. If approved, it would allow Colorado’s political parties to obtain voter-specific data on who’s voting in each primary, much as they do with voters who register as Republicans or Democrats. Supporters of such a move, including Republican Secretary of State Wayne Williams and both political parties, say it’s needed to ensure the integrity of the state’s elections. But elections officials in Denver and Arapahoe counties dispute that line of reasoning, saying they don’t need to know that information to properly administer and audit an election.

Colorado: Secretary of State on 2016 Electoral College vote: ‘They’re investigating’ | The Colorado Independent

“They’re investigating.” That’s what Colorado Secretary of State Wayne Williams said this week about the state attorney general’s office and a probe into what happened during Colorado’s Electoral College vote last year— four months after it took place. On Dec. 19, 2016, during a traditional ceremony where the state’s nine national electors cast their official votes for president, one of them, Micheal Baca, did not cast his for Colorado’s popular vote-getter Hillary Clinton, and was stripped of his duties and replaced.

Colorado: Former State GOP leader said only Democrats committed voter fraud. Now he’s charged with voter fraud. | The Washington Post

The 2016 election was just a month away when Steve Curtis, a conservative radio host and former Colorado Republican Party chairman, devoted an entire episode of his morning talk show to the heated topic of voter fraud. “It seems to me,” Curtis said in the 42-minute segment, “that virtually every case of voter fraud I can remember in my lifetime was committed by Democrats.” On Tuesday, Colorado prosecutors threw a wrench into that already dubious theory, accusing Curtis of voter fraud for allegedly filling out and mailing in his ex-wife’s 2016 ballot for president, Denver’s Fox affiliate reported. Curtis, 57, was charged in Weld County District Court with one count of misdemeanor voter fraud and one count of forgery, a Class 5 felony, according to local media. The case is the only voter fraud investigation stemming from the 2016 election that has resulted in criminal charges, the Colorado secretary of state’s office told Denver’s ABC affiliate.

Colorado: Appeals court remands case on secretary of state fees | Associated Press

The Colorado Court of Appeals has sent back to district court a lawsuit challenging fees collected by the secretary of state’s office to fund elections. The National Federation of Independent Business claims that the business-filing fees are taxes because they pay for non-business-related functions and must be voter-approved under the 1992 Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights. A Denver district court dismissed a federation lawsuit in 2015. It ruled, in part, that the fees are constitutional because they were in effect before TABOR was adopted. TABOR requires voter approval of tax hikes.

Colorado: US Supreme Court Rejects Challenge to Political Ad Disclosure Rules | Reuters

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday upheld federal disclosure rules for political advertising, rejecting an appeal by a Denver-based libertarian think tank that wanted to run an ad without being forced to divulge its major donors. The Denver-based Independence Institute sued the Federal Election Commission, arguing the law requiring such disclosure violated its free speech rights under the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment. The Supreme Court affirmed a lower court’s ruling last year in favor of the commission. It was the latest in a decade-long series of cases brought by conservatives aiming to roll back federal campaign finance restrictions.

Colorado: Ballot selfies one step closer to legalization | Colorado Springs Gazette

A bill to legalize ballot selfies passed a Colorado House Committee Wednesday evening. House Bill 1014 would allow people to take selfies with their completed ballot and share it on social media, which proponents say would encourage voting and allow the exercise of First Amendment rights. “Believe it or not showing someone your completed ballot and taking a photo of it and posting it on social media is currently a crime in Colorado,” said Democratic Rep. Paul Rosenthal of Denver and Republican Rep. Dave Williams of Colorado Springs. The crime is a misdemeanor with a fine up to $1,000 and up to a year in jail, though no one can recall anyone who has ever been charged with the offense in Colorado. “I know this made sense 100 years when corruption was rampant but it does not make sense today,” Rosenthal said.

Colorado: Singer proposes approval voting bill at start of legislative session | Boulder Weekly

On Wednesday, Jan. 11, the 2017 Colorado State legislative session began in Denver and with it came a proposed draft bill from Rep. Jonathan Singer (D-Longmont). The bill would give jurisdictions the option to use approval voting methods in nonpartisan elections. This will be Singer’s third attempt to get such legislation passed. The concept is simple: “Vote for as many candidates as you like, the candidate with the most votes win,” Singer says. “It’s a very positive way of voting.” House Bill 17-0608 would allow voters to check as many candidates as they like in races where political affiliations aren’t on the ballot, such as city councils and school boards. But the law would not require any jurisdictions to use such methods. “I believe that the current system is not creating a system that gives people faith in our government,” Singer says, citing the frustration many voters felt during the 2016 presidential election. “Maybe if people felt like they had more choices, they’d have more faith in our electoral process.”

Colorado: Voters dump presidential caucuses for primaries | The Hill

Colorado voters will pick their presidential nominees via primaries in 2020 after Gov. John Hickenlooper (D) signed two voter-passed propositions into law on Tuesday. Voters approved Proposition 107, which eliminates presidential preference caucuses, by a nearly 2-to-1 margin in November. Voters passed Proposition 108, which allows all voters to participate in partisan primary elections, by a similar margin. The new rules mean all Colorado voters will be allowed to participate in any presidential primary they choose four years from now. Delegates allocated by the primaries will be bound to the winners at national party conventions, under the new state law.

Colorado: After Bernie Sanders Delegate Issue, State Creates Open Primaries For Independent Voters | IBT

Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper signed two ballot measures — Proposition 107 and Proposition 108 — into law Tuesday. The measures call for presidential primaries to be held every four years in the state and allow unaffiliated voters to cast their ballots in the primary elections. Proposition 107 was approved by 64 percent of voters during the Nov. 8 election. The measure is expected to increase spending in the secretary of state’s office by nearly $210,000 during 2018-2019 and by $2.7 million during 2019-2020, when the next presidential elections will be held at which time the presidential primaries will be conducted. Spending is expected to increase every four years. “I think that a caucus doesn’t allow all the people who want to have a voice to have one,” Jessie Koerner, spokeswoman of Let Colorado Vote, reportedly said. “Only five percent of eligible voters voted in the caucus. So that really shows you how few people are able to take part.”

Colorado: Replace The Electoral College? Lawmaker Wants State To Help | CPR

A state lawmaker wants Colorado to join the movement to replace the current Electoral College System with one that awards the presidency to the winner of the national popular vote. Democratic Sen. Andy Kerr, D-Lakewood, says legislation is in the works that would allow Colorado to join an interstate popular-vote compact. Kerr says he’s motivated by the recent presidential election results. Republican Donald Trump won with 304 Electoral College votes, even though his rival, Democrat Hillary Clinton, garnered around 3 million more votes. “My constituents have very loudly let me know that this is something they would like to have happen,” Kerr said. “Quite literally about half of the emails I’ve seen in the past month or so have been about the national popular vote.” Kerr sponsored similar legislation in 2009 when he was a member of the state House of Representatives. That bill passed the House, but died in the Senate.

Colorado: Electors appeal to state Supreme Court to vote against Hillary Clinton | Denver Post

A group of Colorado Democratic electors seeking to vote against Hillary Clinton in defiance of the state’s popular vote are asking the Colorado Supreme Court to set aside a Denver judge’s ruling allowing the Secretary of State to replace them. The petition, filed with the state Supreme Court on Thursday, is the latest legal maneuver to arise from the group known as the “Hamilton Electors,” a movement aimed at blocking Republican businessman Donald Trump from the presidency by forcing an Electoral College deadlock. On Tuesday, the Denver District Court dealt a blow to the movement, ruling that state law requires electors to vote for the presidential and vice presidential candidates who received the most votes in the state. Denver District Judge Elizabeth Starrs also ruled that the Colorado Secretary of State can replace any elector that violates that law.

Colorado: Motion rejected in Electoral College suit in Colorado | Politico

A federal judge has rejected a request for an immediate injunction in lawsuit by two presidential electors in Colorado filed as part of a strategy to block Donald Trump’s election. The ruling — by Bill Clinton appointee Wiley Daniel — delivers a crushing blow to the Hamilton Electors, a group of Electoral College members pursuing a strategy to convince presidential electors across the country to unite behind an alternative candidate to Trump. Daniel’s ruling rejected an effort by Polly Baca and Robert Nemanich — two Democratic electors in Colorado — to immediately prevent the enforcement of a state law that forces them to cast their electoral votes for Hillary Clinton when the Electoral College meets next week. Baca and Nemanich hoped that a favorable ruling would undermine similar statutes in 28 other states, including 14 where Trump won. The attorney for the electors, Jason Wesoky, has signaled to the court that he’ll still pursue litigation in the matter.

Colorado: State crushes national voter turnout figures, but mail ballots aren’t a huge factor | The Denver Post

Even as voter turnout declined across the U.S. for the second presidential contest in a row, Coloradans cast ballots in huge numbers, bucking the national trend and reinforcing the state’s position as a leader in voter participation. But for all the talk of a dramatic shift in Colorado’s elections under the state’s expanded mail-in balloting system, the final numbers in 2016 are going to look a lot like that of presidential elections past. More people voted by mail in Colorado than ever in 2016 — upward of 2.6 million of the 2.8 million ballots cast, according to the latest unofficial tallies from the Secretary of State’s Office. But overall turnout is expected to be slightly above that of 2012, and slightly below 2008. “I think, frankly, there’s no evidence to suggest that the change made any difference in turnout,” said Judd Choate, the state director of elections.

Colorado: Pre-election tests didn’t find limits in Pueblo County voting system | The Pueblo Chieftain

State election officials said Pueblo County would have had to test the county’s election system with 50,000-60,000 test ballots to discover the limited data base on the Dominion Express system that filled up on Election Day, causing days of delay in getting final results. Dwight Shellman, county support manager for the Colorado Secretary of State’s Office, said the limited data base was not mentioned in any of the vendor’s documentation about the Microsoft SQL Express system and that neither state or county officials were aware of it — until the computer server stopped working on Election Day. “We approved that purchase, but if we’d known its limitations, we wouldn’t have,” Shellman said Tuesday. Both Secretary of State Wayne Williams and County Clerk Gilbert “Bo” Ortiz have explained how the vendor — Dominion Voting Systems — rushed a much bigger server to the county last Tuesday to remedy the logjam in counting more than 80,000 votes.

Colorado: Recount possible on slavery in state Constitution | Associated Press

It seemed like a no-brainer: Colorado’s voters were asked to eliminate an archaic and offensive reference to slavery as a punishment for a crime in the state Constitution. But a week after the vote, the poorly-written amendment is on the cusp of failing, and a lack of clarity from lawmakers may be to blame. Adopted before President Ulysses S. Grant proclaimed Colorado a state in 1876, the constitution declares: “There shall never be in this state either slavery or involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime.” That language mirrors the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution that outlawed slavery in 1865. Both chambers of Colorado’s Legislature voted unanimously to refer Amendment T to voters. But it appeared on a state-issued voter’s guide under the title, “No Exception to Involuntary Servitude Prohibition.” The actual ballot question wasn’t much clearer. Not only that: The voter guide included arguments against the measure, even though there was no organized opposition.

Colorado: Cause of Colorado’s Election Delays Explained | Government Technology

Colorado Secretary of State Wayne Williams said Thursday that there were limitations to an election system used in Pueblo County Tuesday that officials were not aware of at the time they purchased the equipment. Counting of all mail in-ballots was expected to be completed at about 10:30 p.m. on Election Day, but a computer server hit its capacity early that day, forcing Pueblo County Clerk and Recorder Gilbert “Bo” Ortiz to call the Colorado Secretary of State’s Office, which provided a larger server. During a Thursday press conference in Colorado Springs, Williams repeated what Ortiz has been saying since the problem began. He told reporters that the size of Pueblo County’s four page ballot caused large scan files to clog the server. Williams said the server software (Microsoft SQL Express) was insufficient to handle the size. “The new (Pueblo County) system uses a scan of the entire ballot so judges quickly can adjudicate (ballots in) any race that might be in question,” Williams said.

Colorado: State to return to presidential primary, but with unaffiliated voters | Colorado Springs Gazette

Big changes may be on the way when it comes to how Colorado picks its political candidates, according to preliminary returns. As of 10 p.m., Proposition 107, which would bring presidential primary elections back to Colorado, replacing the caucus system, was leading 64-36 percent. If the lead holds, the measure would take effect in 2020, allowing about 1 million unaffiliated voters to take part in selecting candidates. Proposition 108 likewise appeared headed for passage, though with a tighter margin. That measure would let unaffiliated electors also participate in non-presidential party primaries, while the parties could in some cases select candidates by committee or convention. Voters cast 1,016,535 votes in support – about 52 percent – versus 926,420 against, according to the late results.