Colorado: GOP cites voting-machine errors | The Denver Post

The Republican National Committee on Thursday called upon Secretary of State Scott Gessler and elections officials elsewhere to look into reports of malfunctioning touch-screen voting machines that may be casting votes for Barack Obama when a voter meant to pick Mitt Romney. In Colorado, Republican officials pointed to a single example of a malfunctioning machine in Mesa County. The GOP asked that voting machines be recalibrated before the polls open Tuesday, that extra technicians be provided and that polling places remind voters to double-check before submitting their selections. In Arapahoe County, where touch-screen machines are the principal means of in-person voting, Clerk Nancy Doty, a Republican, said the request to recalibrate the machines on Election Day was unreasonable. “We have 650 machines,” Doty said. “They’ve already been tested.”

Colorado: Potential voting machine error could cast incorrect ballot | 9news.com

The Colorado Secretary of State’s Office is reviewing a letter from the Republican National Committee that claims action needs to be taken to remedy reports of voting machine errors. The letter, released Thursday, was written to election officials in six states, including Colorado. The Secretary of State’s Office is currently reviewing the requests in the letter. The RNC writes, “In a significant number of cases, voting machines in your states have populated a vote for Barack Obama when a voter cast his or her ballot for Mitt Romney.” The RNC requests four actions to “mitigate any potential machine errors.”

Colorado: GOP cites voting-machine errors | The Denver Post

The Republican National Committee on Thursday called upon Secretary of State Scott Gessler and elections officials elsewhere to look into reports of malfunctioning touch-screen voting machines that may be casting votes for Barack Obama when a voter meant to pick Mitt Romney. In Colorado, Republican officials pointed to a single example of a malfunctioning machine in Mesa County.

Colorado: Covering the search for noncitizen voters in Colorado | Columbia Journalism Review

A young Associated Press reporter has won accolades for staying on the story of the search for noncitizen voters in Colorado—a search spearheaded by Secretary of State Scott Gessler whose 2011 estimate of 11,805 potential noncitizens on state voter rolls recently shrank to 141 and then shrank some more. Earlier this month, AP awarded Ivan Moreno its weekly $300 “Best of State” prize for his work showing how Gessler, a Republican elected in 2010, based his controversial campaign to weed out illegal voters this election year on gross overestimates of the problem. In an October 4th memo to AP staff, Kristin Gazlay—the AP’s managing editor for state news, financial news, and global training—cited Moreno’s “diligent, determined and deft accountability reporting on a key political issue.”

Colorado: Colorado Secretary of State Gessler continues to stir things up | Colorado Statesman

Colorado Secretary of State Scott Gessler told a national conservative audience in Denver last Thursday that those on the left only pretend to care about vote fraud but are only interested in stirring up anger against conservatives to win votes when they “demagogue” the issue. What’s more, he said, his political opponents are happy to play “the racism card, and they are more than willing to lie to do this.” Speaking on a panel at the Conservative Political Action Committee Colorado conference, Gessler blasted the organizers of left-leaning voter registration drives for “illegally registering people to vote” by encouraging non-citizens to register and vote, despite the serious legal consequences. “I think they are very happy to manipulate people into believing it is OK to ignore these laws,” he said.

Colorado: Colorado Secretary of State Gessler continues to stir things up | Colorado Statesman

Colorado Secretary of State Scott Gessler told a national conservative audience in Denver last Thursday that those on the left only pretend to care about vote fraud but are only interested in stirring up anger against conservatives to win votes when they “demagogue” the issue. What’s more, he said, his political opponents are happy to play “the racism card, and they are more than willing to lie to do this.” Speaking on a panel at the Conservative Political Action Committee Colorado conference, Gessler blasted the organizers of left-leaning voter registration drives for “illegally registering people to vote” by encouraging non-citizens to register and vote, despite the serious legal consequences. “I think they are very happy to manipulate people into believing it is OK to ignore these laws,” he said.

Colorado: County clerks blast Gessler for “errors and oversights” | The Denver Post

The Colorado County Clerks Association today unleashed a litany of complaints on Secretary of State Scott Gessler, pointing to a “cumbersome list of issues” with his office.In a letter from Executive Director Donetta Davidson, the clerks’ association called for greater cooperation. Gessler, a Republican, was not available for comment, but a spokesman Andrew Cole, defended the office. “The items that they (clerks) are complaining about have all been meant to and have increased voter registration to the highest level ever in Colorado and have made it easier for military voters to vote than ever before,” Cole said.

Colorado: Software glitch nixes voter registration of nearly 800 Coloradans | The Denver Post

A software glitch on the Colorado Secretary of State’s mobile-optimized website prevented nearly 800 people using tablets and mobile phones from registering to vote. Secretary of State Scott Gessler said the problem occurred between Sept. 14 and Monday because of a software update to the site. The update indavertently caused a problem that prevented 779 people from registering, said Gessler, a Republican. “Frankly, our office did not engage in enough user testing before we rolled out a software fix,” he said, placing the blame squarely on his office. The office now has fixed the problem, having discovered it Monday, but it doesn’t know who the people are who tried to register. That’s why Gessler is asking people who think they registered during the days in question to check their registrations at govotecolorado.com.

Iowa: Election officials in Iowa, other states finding little evidence of voter fraud | TheGazette

Republican election officials who promised to root out voter fraud so far are finding little evidence of a widespread problem. State officials in key presidential battleground states have found only a tiny fraction of the illegal voters they initially suspected existed. Searches in Colorado and Florida have yielded numbers that amount to less than one-tenth of 1 percent of all registered voters in either state. Democrats say the searches waste time and, worse, could disenfranchise eligible voters who are swept up in the checks. “I find it offensive that I’m being required to do more than any other citizen to prove that I can vote,” said Samantha Meiring, 37, a Colorado voter and South African immigrant who became a U.S. citizen in 2010. Meiring was among 3,903 registered voters who received letters last month from the Colorado Secretary of State’s office questioning their right to vote.

National: Election Officials Who Vowed War on Voter Fraud Find Little Proof of It | Fox News

They vowed to wage a war on voter fraud. But those officials are having a hard time finding much of an enemy to fight. State officials in key presidential battleground states, many of them Republican, have found only a tiny fraction of the illegal voters they initially suspected existed. Searches in Colorado and Florida have yielded numbers that amount to less than one-tenth of 1 percent of all registered voters in either state. Democrats say the searches waste time and, worse, could disenfranchise eligible voters who are swept up in the checks. “I find it offensive that I’m being required to do more than any other citizen to prove that I can vote,” said Samantha Meiring, 37, a Colorado voter and South African immigrant who became a U.S. citizen in 2010. Meiring was among 3,903 registered voters who received letters last month from the Colorado Secretary of State’s office questioning their right to vote.

Colorado: It’s no secret: Judge tosses ballot privacy lawsuit against Larimer County CO | The Coloradoan

A federal judge in Denver ruled Friday that the U.S. Constitution does not guarantee the right to a secret ballot. U.S. District Judge Christine Arguello dismissed a lawsuit brought by voting-rights activists with the Aspen-based Citizen Center that accused Colorado election officials including the Larimer County clerk’s office and Secretary of State Scott Gessler of managing voted ballots in a way that is traceable to individual voters. “Coloradans until today have believed they are entitled to a secret ballot,” said Citizen Center founder Marilyn Marks. “Now we’re being told we are mistaken.”

Colorado: Scott Gessler, Colorado’s ‘honey badger,’ may be most closely watched election official | The Washington Post

Colorado Secretary of State Scott Gessler has a deeply partisan past, a dedicated cadre of supporters, a long list of enemies, a colorful nickname bestowed by liberal detractors and a Web site dedicated to “watching” him. The scrutiny will only get more intense between now and November as the “honey badger of Colorado politics” — a reference to the ferocious, fearless animal — presides over voting in a battleground state that could help decide the presidency. Gessler may be the most closely watched election official in the country, heightened by Colorado’s prominence, his ready-to-rumble personality and a series of loud disputes with what he has termed the “angry left.”

Colorado: Denver clerk sues Gessler over mailing ballots to inactive voters | The Denver Post

Denver Clerk and Recorder Debra Johnson on Wednesday sued Colorado Secretary of State Scott Gessler, challenging a rule from his office to block ballots from being mailed to inactive voters in city and school board elections. “The election rules adopted in August by the Colorado secretary of state prohibiting the mailing of ballots to inactive-failed-to-vote voters in nonpartisan and coordinated elections infringes on Denver’s status as a home rule city and county,” Johnson said in a statement. “We believe that the secretary of state is overstepping his authority by trying to control who gets ballots in local municipal elections.

Colorado: Lack of evidence doesn’t stop Colorado from going after voter fraud | Examiner.com

Colorado Secretary of State Scott Gessler has been investigating voter fraud for over a year even though concern over ballots being cast by thousands of voters who aren’t U.S. citizens has been founded on myth, not math. “It’s created an atmosphere where voters, even ones who are entitled to vote, fear their registration may not be valid or that they’ll be challenged at the polls,” said Elena Nunez, executive director of Common Cause, a liberal group that has tangled with Gessler over election issues. More than a year ago Gessler said there could be in excess of 11,000 noncitizens registered to vote in Colorado. Earlier this month, the Republican Secretary of State announced that his office had found only 141 people who were noncitizens registered to vote out of 1,416 names run through a federal database, and of those 141, only 35 who had cast ballots. That number represents 0.001 percent of Colorado’s 3.5 million registered voters.

Colorado: Election activist claims she’s broken Boulder’s ballot code | Boulder Weekly

The election reform advocate who has been blowing the whistle on ballots that can be traced back to voters is claiming that she “broke the code” to Boulder County’s ballot-numbering system last week. But Boulder County Clerk and Recorder Hillary Hall submitted a new, more complex vote-counting process to Secretary of State Scott Gessler this week, and that may make the discovery moot. Marilyn Marks, who filed suit against Gessler and several Colorado counties after it was revealed that ballots could be traced back to voters in Chaffee County, told Boulder Weekly that she figured out how to track voter identities using Boulder County’s system of serial numbers and bar codes, an approach that she says violates state law. The state Constitution says “no ballots shall be marked in any way whereby the ballots can be identified as the ballot of the person casting it.” In response to the Chaffee County discovery, Gessler issued an emergency rule saying counties must stop using numbers on ballots.

Colorado: Noncitizen voters ID’d fraction of those first alleged by Secretary of State Gessler | The Denver Post

More than a year ago, Colorado Secretary of State Scott Gessler said there could be in excess of 11,000 noncitizens registered to vote in Colorado and more than 4,000 of those who had cast ballots, and he has called noncitizen voter registration a “gaping hole” in the system. But earlier this month, Gessler, a Republican, announced that his office had found only 141 people who were noncitizens registered to vote out of 1,416 names run through a federal database, and of those 141, only 35 who had cast ballots. That number represents 0.001 percent of Colorado’s 3.5 million registered voters.

Voting Blogs: The Nearly Non-Citizen Purges | Brennan Center for Justice

This week, Florida partially settled one of three lawsuits challenging its attempted purge of non-citizens form its voter rolls. The state has promised to send corrective letters to thousands of voters who received unfounded notices of removal and to restore to the rolls any who were wrongly removed. Across the country, Colorado recently conceded it lacks adequate procedures or time to fairly pursue a similar purge effort before Election Day and will not do so. This is good news for the thousands of eligible citizens who otherwise would have been swept up further in these purges. It also reveals a dramatically different story than the tall tale Secretaries of State Gessler and Detzner were selling to the public just a few months ago. Last year Colorado Secretary of State Scott Gessler declared a virtual state of emergency — possibly 11,000 non-citizens on the Colorado voter rolls. Soon after, Secretary of State Ken Detzner in Florida upped the ante by claiming he had a list of 180,000 potential non-citizens. That got attention. Numbers like that indicate a massive problem. But the numbers weren’t quite right. Not even close. The final count? According to Colorado it appears that up to 141non-citizens could be on its voter rolls. That’s .004 percent of its 3.5 million registered voters. Florida now reports that its numbers could be as high as … 207. That’s .002 percent of its 11.5 million registered voters. Error-ridden and inaccurate voter rolls are a problem, and any ineligible voter on the rolls should be removed. But playing fast and loose with numbers is not the way to do it.

Colorado: Election watchdogs seek to block Boulder County ballot printing | Boulder Daily Camera

Boulder County Clerk Hillary Hall says a new system for numbering ballots would preserve voter anonymity as well as efficiency in tallying election results, and she expects it to pass muster with the Secretary of State’s Office. However, election integrity activists say any “distinguishing marks” on ballots violate the law and open the door to linking individual voters with their ballots. The group Citizen Center has filed a request for a restraining order in federal court to stop the printing of Boulder County’s ballots with distinguishing serial numbers. A hearing on the request is scheduled for Sept. 21. Like other counties who use the Hart Voting System, Boulder County’s ballots have three sets of numbers and bar codes — one that identifies the election, one that identifies the precinct and ballot content (which jurisdictions and ballot questions the voter is voting on) and one that identifies the ballot.

Colorado: Can your vote be traced? Boulder County is in the thick of Colorado’s budget battle | Boulder Weekly

The election ballot system used by Boulder County is at the center of a standoff between Secretary of State Scott Gessler and several of Colorado’s county clerks. And someone has to blink soon, since the deadline for printing ballots is fast approaching. In addition to Boulder County Clerk and Recorder Hillary Hall, the players include Marilyn Marks, an Aspen activist who has filed suit against Gessler and a number of counties for using ballots printed with information that can be used to trace the identity of voters, contrary to state law. After being confronted with the outcome of Marks’ investigation, in which she and others demonstrated how to track ballots from a June primary election in Chaffee County to the individuals who cast them, Gessler recently issued an emergency rule saying counties could no longer use the serial numbers or bar codes in question. The rule also requires clerks to black out that information when releasing past voted ballots under the state’s open records act, in an attempt to mitigate the damage done and prevent any further tracing.

Colorado: Voter Purges Net Few Noncitizens, So Far | Minnesota Public Radio News

States using a federal immigration database to purge noncitizens from voter lists are starting to get results, which so far include few illegal voters. In Florida, which was first to gain access to the database after fighting the federal government in court, an initial run of roughly 2,600 names has turned up “several” violators, according to a spokesman for Florida Secretary of State Ken Detzner. “We are seeing that there are definitely noncitizens on the voter rolls, but we’re still very early in this review process,” says Chris Cate. A much larger list of suspected noncitizens soon will be fed through the database, Cate says. The list will be an updated version culled from cross-checking voter rolls and driver’s license data, a method that produced about 180,000 names last year. Colorado, which along with Florida was initially denied access to the database, says that an automated check of more than 1,400 names has flagged 177 people as possible noncitizens. Colorado has asked the Department of Homeland Security, which maintains the database, to assign a person to verify their status. “For the moment, we have no confirmed noncitizens, but I would expect that most of those people would come back as noncitizens,” says Andrew Cole, a spokesman for Colorado Secretary of State Scott Gessler.

Colorado: Colorado elections chief withholds names of suspected non-citizens; cites investigation | AP

Citing an ongoing investigation, Colorado Secretary of State Scott Gessler said Tuesday he would not allow public inspection of the list of nearly 4,000 registered voters he suspects are ineligible to vote because they’re not citizens. Gessler was responding to an open record request from The Associated Press seeking to review the list to determine who the secretary mailed letters to last week, asking them to verify their citizenship or voluntarily withdraw from the rolls. “Obviously our intent is to improve the integrity of the voting rolls. It’s not to draw attention to specific individuals,” Gessler spokesman Rich Coolidge said. Coolidge said Gessler doesn’t want people who voluntarily withdraw from the voter rolls to be prosecuted. But it’s unclear what will happen to people who don’t withdraw from the list if they’re ineligible to vote. “We’re still trying to identify a path forward with that,” Coolidge said.

Colorado: Election glitches raise concerns heading into November | The Denver Post

Reports of traceable ballots, voting irregularities and a county clerk who was “completely unprepared” for the June primary are prompting concerns about Colorado’s readiness as Election Day draws near in a presidential battleground state. Last week, an elections integrity group asked a federal judge to order clerks in Boulder, Chaffee and Eagle counties to stop marking ballots in a way that allows them to be traced to the person who cast them. If the practice continues, it could lead to election results in those counties — and others that use similar markings — being invalidated, an attorney for the non-profit Citizens Center stated in court filings. Late Monday, Secretary of State Scott Gessler issued an emergency rule prohibiting the markings, saying in a press release “this practice ends today.”

Colorado: Scott Gessler adopts emergency rule to prevent ballots from being traced to voters | Westword

After a voter advocacy group offered proof that county clerks and other election officials could identify how specific people voted — which would violate a citizen’s basic right to a secret ballot — Colorado Secretary of State Scott Gessler announced an “emergency rule” effective immediately that will prevent officials from linking ballots to voters. It’s a big win for activist Marilyn Marks, who has been criticizing the system for more than a year. But at least one county clerk thinks the rule change will only create a whole host of headaches come Election Day. The rule announced late yesterday afternoon is a noteworthy move for Gessler, who has faced numerous lawsuits and considerable criticism from government watchdog groups and other political organizations as the November election nears.

Colorado: Gessler asks 4,000 prove eligibility or get off Colorado voter rolls | The Denver Post

Colorado Secretary of State Scott Gessler has mailed letters to about 4,000 registered voters his office suspects may be noncitizens, asking them to either verify that they have become citizens or to voluntarily remove themselves from the state’s voter rolls. The letters, sent Wednesday to people who used a noncitizen identification when they applied for a Colorado driver’s license and who also are registered to vote, includes a “verification of voter eligibility” form for people who have become citizens to fill out and return. The letters also include instructions on how noncitizens may withdraw their registration. “Our approach improves the integrity of our voter rolls,” Gessler said in a statement Thursday. “Once we cut through the political noise, voters will see a measured approach that enforces the law and ensures that legal votes aren’t cancelled out by illegal voters.”

Colorado: Gessler could be pivotal in battleground Colorado | NBC Politics

Scott Gessler isn’t a household name in national politics, but could become famous in a hurry, just as Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris did during the 2000 presidential recount. Colorado’s swing state pattern in the last five presidential elections makes its nine electoral votes loom large this November. And, as Colorado’s Republican secretary of state, elected in 2010, Gessler could have a decisive influence on the November outcome in the state. He has launched efforts to remove ineligible people from the voter rolls. And if it’s a close vote, he would preside over any recount and be the official who certifies the state’s electoral vote to the U.S. House of Representatives after the election. Gessler scored a victory last week when the Department of Homeland Security agreed to let his agency to use DHS databases of non-citizens to cross-check the list of Colorado voters to ensure that non-citizens are not registered.

Colorado: Gessler’s proposed changes to election rules draw heated objections | The Colorado Independent

Over the course of a five-hour rulemaking hearing Monday, Colorado Secretary of State Scott Gessler probably got the message that a lot of people are unhappy with proposed rules that would stop county clerks from mailing ballots to inactive voters in some elections, change the way canvass boards are selected and give county clerks more power to determine how much access election watchers have. About 40 people signed up to testify at this week’s hearing; nearly all of them spoke in opposition to one or more of Gessler’s proposed rule changes, which covered three general areas. “It was pretty much all opposition,” commented Luis Toro, executive director of Colorado Ethics Watch, who did not speak.  “I don’t think it (the opposition) will change anything, though,” he said. The rules, (pdf) either as presented by Gessler or as revised by his office as a result of the hearing and written testimony, could go into effect as early as Monday, at Gessler’s discretion.

Colorado: Why votes in Larimer County CO aren’t as secret as you think | The Coloradoan

It’s a secret locked away from lovers, parents, children and best friends. Now a voter-advocacy group is suing some Colorado election officials, including Larimer County Clerk and Recorder Scott Doyle, to assure that greater ballot security keeps voters’ preferences from prying eyes. Because of the way they are sorted, stored and preserved, each voted ballot in some counties — including Larimer — can be traced back to the individual who cast it, the Citizen Center claims in its federal lawsuit against six county clerks and Colorado Secretary of State Scott Gessler. Legal pleadings of the election officials and conversations with others leave little doubt that ballot data in some counties can be mined deep enough to reveal who cast each ballot and, consequently, how they voted. “We acknowledge that there are some traceable ballots,” said Andrew Cole, spokesman for the Colorado Secretary of State’s Office.

Colorado: Election watchers see officials chipping away at public oversight | The Colorado Independent

Marty Neilson, Republican Party election watcher, walked out of the Boulder County Clerk’s building in disgust as workers there tabulated primary voting results the last week of June. Neilson said she couldn’t see anything of substance and felt like she was participating in a sham exercise in oversight. “[Clerk Hillary Hall] kept us behind [solid] walls and behind glass walls,” Neilson told the Colorado Independent. “We are there to view the whole process, which is what the statutes say we’re supposed to do, from the time the [election workers] get the ballots to the time they verify the signatures and then count the votes. But it was a charade. I left because why stay? There was no reason to be there.” Neilson said she phoned Secretary of State Scott Gessler to complain and that he later called back to say he was sympathetic to her concerns. His office didn’t return messages left by the Independent seeking comment, but the update to election law Rule 8.6 (pdf) he has proposed with the aim of bringing clarity to the regulations governing election watchers may well exacerbate the kind of problems watchers complained about in Boulder. The new version of the rule would give greater discretion to county clerks to direct watcher activities. The secretary of state’s office is holding a public hearing on the rule June 23.

Colorado: Election Officials Respond to Illegal Voter Study | KREX

Findings from state officials suggest that Colorado has potential illegal voters across some of the state’s largest counties, including Mesa County. Secretary of State Scott Gessler cross-referenced Colorado’s immigration detainer list with the voter registration database and found 85 potential matches of non-citizens who are reportedly registered to vote. Mesa County Clerk and Recorder Sheila Reiner called the findings inaccurate and misleading to the public. “We did the same type of data match against the Mesa County voter rolls and we get zero,” said Reiner. Gessler’s office couldn’t give us the number of people they say are illegally registered in Mesa County because the research is ongoing. However, since the lists only check names and dates of birth, someone with the same name and birthday could mistakenly be included. “If you take a population that has 30,000 names that are the same names, birthdays would match up,” said Karl Castleton, the chair of the Mesa County Democratic Party.

Colorado: Suthers asks Homeland Security chief to verify voters’ citizenship | The Denver Post

Colorado Secretary of State Scott Gessler is intensifying efforts to root out and remove any noncitizens from the state’s voter rolls before the November election — and this time, he has the backing of Attorney General John Suthers and top elections officials in 11 other states. Gessler and Suthers sent separate letters to Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano on Monday, again asking DHS to help verify the citizenship status of about 5,000 Colorado voters. Suthers’ letter also states that DHS is required under federal law to provide the information, and that the U.S. Supreme Court reiterated that requirement in its recent decision on Arizona’s immigration law.