Colorado lawmakers Wednesday once again took up the issue of photo identification as a requirement to vote, killing two measures that would have mandated the practice. The Republican-backed measures were killed by the Democratic-controlled House State, Veterans and Military Affairs Committee on party-line votes. Similar attempts in recent years at the Legislature also failed. Both bills Wednesday addressed same-day voter registration, enacted by a Democratic-backed measure in 2013 that made sweeping reforms to the state’s election laws, including allowing voters to register on Election Day. One of the bills Wednesday was sponsored by Rep. Don Coram, R-Montrose. His idea with the legislation was to send the question to Colorado voters, pointing to a Magellan Strategies poll that indicated 72 percent of voters support photo ID as a condition of same-day voter registration.
Coram called his measure an “anti-speculation” bill. “With the passage of our election laws and same-day voter registration, there are questions about what does this mean. Are we conducting a fair election?” Coram asked. “The fact is, we really don’t know.”
After the vote on his measure, Coram said the bill only was “Round 1,” stating that the issue would come up again as a ballot initiative, in which he would take a lead role.
The other bill to die Wednesday also would have required photo identification for same-day voter registration but would not have required a vote of the people.
Full Article: The Durango Herald 02/18/2015 | Voter ID bills struck down.