Editorials: Colorado’s terrible election law has real-world consequences | Jon Caldara/Greeley Tribune

I’m not going to jail, at least not for voting. That means good news for me, and a chance to keep Coloradans’ trust in our election results, but only if the new General Assembly is willing to act on the terrible election law passed last year. While anti-gun legislation dominated the media during the last Colorado legislative session, the most dangerous bill passed was a revamp of our voting laws. Thanks to House Bill 1303, Colorado is now the poster child for sloppy election law. Not only does a cable TV or phone bill serve as a valid form of voter identification, but we’re also the only state in the country that has both all mail-in ballots and same-day voter registration. Under the new law our ballots, including yours, are flung through the mail like grocery-store coupons, whether you want them delivered that way to you or not. As the news site CompleteColorado.com reported, ballots in the last election were readily found in trash cans and apartment mail rooms, just ready to be harvested.

Colorado: No charges against activist who voted in recall to point out flaws in Colorado law | The Gazette

The Attorney General’s Office will not charge Jon Caldara for voting in the September recall election of Sen. John Morse, despite what investigators deemed extremely suspect behavior. Caldara, a longtime Boulder resident and a Republican, used a new same-day registration law to register to vote in El Paso County and cast a ballot in the recall election. Caldara told the media that he was voting to prove a point: that the Democrats’ new election law was flawed and allowed voters to move from district to district and vote in close elections with little recourse. “It’s not a big surprise. I wasn’t worried about it,” Caldara said of the decision. “This law was created to legalize voter mischief. It was created so that voters could be moved around into districts where their vote was most needed at the very last moment of the campaign. All I did was to make public what happens privately.”

Colorado: Officials reviewing voter fraud allegations | Colorado Springs Gazette

About 268 voters registered to vote or changed their address through election day to vote in the Senate District 11 successful recall of Sen. John Morse, D-Colorado Springs. The historic recall elections Tuesday in El Paso and Pueblo counties were the first under a new law that allows election day address changes and voter registration. Christy Le Lait, who ran Morse’s campaign to stay in office, said a stunt illustrating how to abuse that law that was covered widely by the media has cast a pall of doubt over those votes. “What is real, what isn’t, what’s fraud?” Le Lait asked. “I don’t even know how you start to look at that.” Morse, the sitting Senate president, was removed from office by 343 votes in the special election taken to the ballot by citizens angered by stricter gun laws who signed a recall petition. Le Lait said there are no plans to challenge the election results, which could be certified any day.

Colorado: Gov. John Hickenlooper critical of Jon Caldara’s recall voting “stunt” | Denver Post

Gov. John Hickenlooper is the latest to weigh in with concerns about Jon Caldara’s residency switch Saturday so he could vote in the recall election of Senate President John Morse of Colorado Springs.  Caldara, a longtime Boulder resident, said he was was trying to make a point that a new election law passed by Democrats and signed into law by Hickenlooper in May undid residency requirements that had been in Colorado law for years. “We are hearing disturbing reports that some people are being encouraged to go to the polls, not to legitimately vote, but to disrupt the process,” Hickenlooper said in a statement issued today. “That would be unlawful and makes a mockery of the democratic process. We urge the county clerks in Pueblo and El Paso counties to make clear that people engaged in attempting to disrupt the elections are open to criminal prosecution. We’ve also reached out to the attorney general to help us ensure fair elections take place this week.” Morse and another Democratic senator, Angela Giron of Pueblo, face recall elections Tuesday for their support for gun legislation in the 2013 session. The Independence Institute opposed the bills, and Caldara talks about the election law on the group’s web site. The governor’s spokesman, Eric Brown, on Sunday talked about “political stunts.”

Colorado: County clerk discounts voter fraud allegations | The Gazette

As voters continued to cast ballots early in the recall election Saturday, questions swirled about voter fraud and ballot box stuffing. The fears are, so far, unfounded. Although Jon Caldara, president of the think tank Independence Institute, cast a blank ballot in the election Saturday to prove a point that ‘gypsy voting’ is very real. Caldara lives in Boulder but attested a Colorado Springs address was his permanent residence in a sworn affidavit. “It is easy to move voters around,” Caldara said Saturday morning after casting a ballot he left blank at the Garden of the Gods voting center. “The whole purpose of this was to finally show what I think and I speculate happens often, that people come and use this same-day voter registration to move voters around.”

Colorado: New El Paso County resident Jon Caldara turns in blank recall ballot | The Denver Post

Republican Jon Caldara changed his voter registration Saturday morning from Boulder to El Paso County, saying a flawed election law Democrats passed earlier this year allows him to claim residency in another jurisdiction. But Caldara didn’t mark a ballot in the recall of Senate President John Morse of Colorado Springs, a Democrat who faces ouster for pushing through stricter gun laws in the 2013 session. Caldara is president of the Independence Institute, a think tank that fought the gun legislation and would like to see Morse lose his seat. Critics of Caldara’s plan claimed he could be charged with vote fraud, but he said that’s not why he left his ballot blank when he submitted it. “The point was not to be that last vote for Morse — as delicious as that might be — the purpose is to show how easy it is under the new law to move voters from district to district,” he said. Caldara originally marked his ballot “VOID,” which resulted in the elections machine not taking it, so he received another ballot, which had to be specially entered into the voting machine because it was not filled out.