Colorado: Gessler: No ballots for soldiers who didn’t vote in 2010 | The Colorado Independent

Pueblo County Clerk Gilbert Ortiz gave Colorado Secretary of State Scott Gessler until this morning to specifically and formally address another of the charged ramifications of his new interpretation of state election law. Gessler got in under the wire. Thursday evening, he sent Ortiz a letter ordering him not to send ballots to any of the county’s “inactive voters”– legally registered voters who failed to cast ballots in the previous even-year general election– including roughly 70 soldiers on the Pueblo County inactive voter rolls serving out of state. In Pueblo as elsewhere in the state, inactive voters are now meant to visit the clerk’s office or a polling place to retrieve ballots. With the election a month away, Gessler’s directive seems likely to effectively disenfranchise the soldiers.

On Wednesday, Ortiz told the Colorado Independent he was pained by the idea of not sending out the ballots. “This is not a comfortable place to be,” he said, adding that not sending the ballots went against all of his priorities as clerk. He said he felt the clock ticking for the inactive-voter soldiers.

Colorado: Court of Appeals rules voted ballots should be public records | The Denver Post

The Colorado Court of Appeals ruled today that electronic images of voted ballots should be open for public inspection, provided the voter’s identity cannot be discerned from the ballot. The ruling could have a major impact on Colorado election law, though today’s decision likely is not the end of the fight.

Earlier this month, Secretary of State Scott Gessler said he would use the court’s decision as guidance to begin the rulemaking process for how public reviews of voted ballots should be conducted. Gessler has said that public access to voted ballots will improve transparency, and therefore increase voter confidence in elections.

Colorado’s county clerks association has maintained that ballots should be secret, and not subject to the Colorado Open Records Act. They have said they will fight efforts by Gessler or the public to review voted ballots, either in court or the General Assembly. Today’s ruling stems from a case filed in Pitkin County by election activist Marilyn Marks.

Colorado: Larimer County Clerk opposes ballots being made public | NOCO5

Larimer County Clerk and Recorder Scott Doyle is the president of the Colorado County Clerks Association and says that making these ballots a matter of public record could allow people to find out how you voted in that last election and he’s just not prepared to do that.

Secretary of State Scott Gessler says making the ballots a matter of public record creates public confidence and transparency in the clerk’s offices. Scott Doyle says there is no more transparent office than the clerk’s office.

“It’s not that we have anything to hide or anything like that, we’re not afraid of that at all as a matter of fact, our elections are done with integrity in Colorado and we have good records,” Doyle said. But that making ballots a matter of public record is too risky.

Colorado: Clerks prepared to fight effort to make voted ballots available to public | The Denver Post

Colorado’s county clerks say voted ballots should remain private even if there is no way to associate a ballot with the individual who cast it, and they will fight any effort by the public to inspect them — even if it means going to court or asking legislators for help.

The clerks’ position follows the unprecedented citizen review of ballots in Saguache County orchestrated by Secretary of State Scott Gessler’s office. Gessler and many open-government advocates believe that making ballots available for public review is a way to maintain voter confidence; voters literally can see for themselves that a race or races were counted accurately.

The clerks believe the opposite is true. The disagreement is doing more than adding tension to an already strained relationship between Gessler and the clerks.