Category Archives: Voting and Ballot Issues

House Dems To Gessler: You Don’t Make The Law

19
  by: Colorado Pols Tue July 24, 2012 at 2:00 AM MDT

As hearings began today on Colorado Secretary of State Scott Gessler’s controversial proposed new election rules, including barring the delivery of mail ballots to so-called “inactive–failed to vote” voters who may have simply missed one election, House Democrats led by Rep. Crisanta Duran staked out their staunch opposition. From their release:

Rep. Crisanta Duran and 29 other state legislators called on Secretary of State Scott Gessler today to halt his efforts “to restrict the legitimate exercise of Coloradans’ right to vote.”

At a hearing convened by the Secretary of State’s office this afternoon to discuss rules proposed by Secretary Gessler to prevent county clerks from mailing ballots to inactive voters, Rep. Duran (D-Denver) planned to hand him a letter, signed by 29 Democratic state representatives, saying his proposal “clearly oversteps your rulemaking authority.”

“The Secretary of State can ‘administer and enforce’ election laws,” the letter read. “What he or she cannot do is rewrite them. That prerogative is exclusively reserved to the General Assembly.” [Pols emphasis]

Rep. Claire Levy (D-Boulder) was the prime House sponsor of the legislation that allowed permanent vote-by-mail status, which would be undercut by the proposed rules. “It was our intention in that bill to increase voter participation, not to create obscure procedural obstacles,” Rep. Levy said.

The letter accused Secretary Gessler of waging “a campaign to create obstacles to voting by validly registered electors in the State of Colorado.”

“The right to vote is a fundamental constitutional right,” the letter said. “Your efforts to alienate that right are no more justifiable than abridging the freedom of speech or the free exercise of religion.”

To briefly recap, a state law requiring that mail ballots be delivered to all registered voters with a valid address expired after the 2010 election cycle. Gessler lost in court last fall attempting to stop Denver and Pueblo counties from sending these ballots, after which several other Colorado counties joined them. This year, Gessler helped kill legislation that would have clarified the status of inactive voters statewide and ensured they got mail ballots–because the “uniformity” Gessler wanted was on the side of fewer ballots being delivered.

And this is where we find ourselves today. Gessler said last fall that his intention was to protect “uniformity” in Colorado elections, but now it seems only a certain kind of “uniformity” will do.

Full text of the letter to Gessler follows after the jump. We’ll update tomorrow with coverage from today’s rules hearing–any bets on Gessler suddenly being swayed by heartfelt testimony, maybe even a pang of remorse for seeking to curtail access to the franchise instead of expanding it?

Keep your money in your pocket, we’re just kidding!


Honorable Scott Gessler

Secretary of State

State of Colorado

Dear Mr. Secretary:

We have asked Representative Crisanta Duran to deliver this letter to you and to testify on our behalf at today’s rules hearing at the Colorado Secretary of State’s office. We are confident in her ability to eloquently express our views, but we want to underscore two points:

1. We believe your proposed rule to prevent county clerks from mailing ballots in all-mail elections clearly oversteps your rulemaking authority.

There is nothing in the election law that currently prohibits clerks from mailing ballots to Inactive-Failed to Vote electors in a mail ballot election.  The Secretary of State can “administer and enforce” election laws.  What he or she cannot do is rewrite them. That prerogative is exclusively reserved to the General Assembly, of which we, the undersigned, are members.

We predict that your efforts to reach beyond your office’s allocated authority will be met with skepticism by the courts.

2. We believe your attempt to rewrite the law through these proposed rules is part of a campaign to create obstacles to voting by validly registered electors in the State of Colorado.

The right to vote is a fundamental constitutional right. Your efforts to alienate that right a

re no more justifiable than abridging the freedom of speech or the free exercise of religion.

Our democratic process works best when the greatest number of people participate in it. Intimidation and suppression of legitimate voters harkens back to some of the darkest days in our nation’s history. Attempts to reduce voter participation run contrary not only to the letter of the law, but also to the spirit of America and of the State of Colorado.

Mr. Secretary, you are the state’s chief elections official. The people of Colorado look to you to be the guardian and protector of fair and free elections. We strongly urge you to halt all efforts to restrict the legitimate exercise of Coloradans’ right to vote.


Full story: House Dems To Gessler: You Don’t Make The Law

New Advertiser: “Gessler Watch”

5
  by: Colorado Pols Thu July 19, 2012 at 10:05 PM MDT

Please take a moment to visit the website of our newest advertiser, Gessler Watch, by clicking on their ad on the right column of this page. Remember, most of the ads you see every day here are Google Ads–to advertise with Colorado Pols directly, click the “Advertise at Colorado Pols” link, or email ads@coloradopols.com to inquire about specialty ads and placements.


Full story: New Advertiser: “Gessler Watch”

Gessler’s partisan antics are bad, but when he’s also wrong, it’s worse

0
  by: Jason Salzman Thu July 19, 2012 at 7:50 PM MDT

In a blog post yesterday, I offered some fresh examples of how, when Scott Gessler is on right-wing radio, he often sounds just like the right-wing radio host, bashing Democrats.

That’s not good, if you’re the Secretary of State, because you’re supposed to be above the partisan fray, at least somewhat, so that people trust our election system.

In my example yesterday, from Gessler’s recent appearance on KOA’s Mike Rosen Show, Gessler said it’s “the left’s common tactic just to scream voter intimidation whenever anything comes up they don’t like.”

Gessler: “I mean if you look back, back in 2004, you know, the Kerry-Edwards presidential campaign actually published a Colorado election-day manual, and in that, they specifically said, if no signs of intimidation techniques have emerged yet, launch a preemptive strike. And they go through a whole list of things where the Democrats are supposed to launch a preemptive strike, accusing Republicans of intimidation, rounding up minority people. And that’s their word. It says, quote minority leadership denouncing tactics that discourage people from voting. So it’s really sort of a cynical way for the Democrats to try and rile up, and I should say the left as well, to rile up their base by making these accusations whether or not there are any facts to support it.”

I should have taken the time to see if Gessler had his facts right about the Kerry-Edwards campaign manual, but I’m grateful that Tom,  a commentator on ColoradoPols, looked it up for me.

Here’s an excerpt from it, as provided by the Democratic National Comittee, and it shows that, far from proving Gessler’s point that the left screams “voter intimidation whenever anything comes up they don’t like,” Democrats were simply preparing intelligently for possible voter intimidation:

II. HOW TO ORGANIZE TO PREVENT AND COMBAT VOTER INTIMIDATION The best way to combat minority voter intimidation tactics is to prevent them from occurring in the first place and prepare in advance to deal with them should they take place on election day.

1. If there are any signs of present or expected intimidation activity, in advance of election day, launch a press program that might include the following elements:

The document continues with a list of suggestions, which you can read if you’re interested.

On ColoradoPols, Tom offered this comment:

The manual in question was excerpted by Drudge in 2004. The DNC released a more complete excerpt indicating that the “pre-emptive strike” was to get information out to let potentially disenfranchised voters know what to look out for, especially in states with a history of voter intimidation and disenfranchisement.

It’s not surprising that Colorado had such a thing in the field since Donetta Davidson was letting fly with a stream of sketchy shit, including a big voter purge, inconsistent application of voting rules across counties and the wonky implementation of new voting machines. Even the Guardian newspaper covered our little doings. http://www.guardian.co.uk/worl…

Actually, a pre-emptive strike to counter voter disenfranchisement sounds like something that would be useful this year in a number of states.

I couldn’t find a current copy of the DNC document, but here’s a 2004 wayback machine link http://web.archive.org/web/200…

Bottom line: it’s bad enough for a Secretary of State to throw out partisan salvos, as if he were Mike Rosen. But when his partisan attacks are also completely misleading or outright wrong, it’s even worse. And Rosen should let his listeners know about it.


Full story: Gessler’s partisan antics are bad, but when he’s also wrong, it’s worse

Gessler’s brazen partisanship should make even the Mike Rosens of the world mad

8
  by: Jason Salzman Wed July 18, 2012 at 6:31 PM MDT

(Split to fit…more after the fold – promoted by ClubTwitty)



As Secretary of State Scott Gessler’s term drags on, you’d think even the stomachs of conservatives like KOA’s Mike Rosen would turn when Gessler re-launches the partisan attacks he’s been on about since day one in office.

Maybe you wouldn’t expect Rosen to be sick of it, but everyone else, yes?

It’s almost laughable to suggest again that Gessler should take his office seriously and start sounding like our state’s top election official, instead of like a Republican attack dog, because no one expects Gessler to change his ways at this point.

But still, his partisan rhetoric is, to use an over-used word in political commentary, unacceptable, and even the likes of Rosen should call him on it.



For example, on Rosen’s show last week, Rosen read Gessler a Denver Post quote from Joanne Kron Schwartz, the Director of the progressive group ProgressNow, saying that Gessler’s attempt to find noncitizens on the voter rolls could intimidate some eligible voters, particularly Latinos, and result in their not voting.

A Secretary of State in his right mind, who wants people to have faith in elections, would answer Schwartz’s reasonable objection with a fact-based response, sticking to his lines about how the voting rolls must be scrutinized.

But Gessler’s immediate response sounds like something Rush Limbaugh might blast out.

“Unfortunately this is part of the left’s common tactic,” Gessler told Rosen, “just to scream voter intimidation whenever anything comes up they don’t like.”

Let me just say, I’m part of the left and I don’t scream voter intimidation “whenever anything comes up” that I don’t like. I never scream it at my 15-year-old son, for example, when he leaves a pig-pen-like trail of debris around the house.

Maybe Gessler means to say that the left is too concerned about voter intimidation.

But why would you expect a person with Gessler’s job title to stick to a measured response?

Gessler’s un-statesmanship continued, with Rosen’s approval:

Gessler: “I mean if you look back, back in 2004, you know, the Kerry-Edwards presidential campaign actually published a Colorado election-day manual, and in that, they specifically said, if no signs of intimidation techniques have emerged yet, launch a preemptive strike. And they go through a whole list of things where the Democrats are supposed to launch a preemptive strike, accusing Republicans of intimidation, rounding up minority people. And that’s their word. It says, quote minority leadership denouncing tactics that discourage people from voting. So it’s really sort of a cynical way for the Democrats to try and rile up, and I should say the left as well, to rile up their base by making these accusations whether or not there are any facts to support it.”

Even if you accept Gessler’s facts about the Kerry-Edwards campaign, and why should you, do you really want your secretary of state to dismiss a historically legitimate concern about voter intimidation by accusing Democrats of cynically riling up their base?

It’s this sort of brazen partisanship that, at the end of the day, is Gessler’s core downfall as Secretary of State, epitomized in Gessler’s quote to the Greeley Tribune about his job: “You’re here to do something, to further the conservative viewpoint.”

We can disagree with his loose-with-the-facts style, and priorities, but his sullying of the office is what kills me most-and should even kill a civic-minded guy like Rosen.

“You have to sort of wonder at the motivations,” Gessler said later in the interview, speculating about the evil leftists that seem to haunt him. “I think a lot of times, what they are trying to do is play the race card, play the disenfranchisement card, and use it as a political talking point to rile up their base.”

Thanks, Rush Gessler.


Full story: Gessler’s brazen partisanship should make even the Mike Rosens of the world mad

Gessler Might Prefer a Different Choice of Words

5
  by: Colorado Pols Wed July 18, 2012 at 5:13 PM MDT

An amusing little edit we caught between two versions of an AP story yesterday, discussing Secretary of State Scott Gessler’s top-priority effort to purge Colorado’s voter rolls of an unspecified number of (but maybe a few dozen) illegally registered voters. As published to the Pueblo Chieftain’s website yesterday evening, one version of the lede paragraph:

Colorado’s elections chief is moving quickly [Pols emphasis] to identify and eliminate any ineligible voters by using a federal immigration database – an effort that left-leaning groups warn could lead to U.S. citizens wrongly being kicked off the rolls.

Gessler, the Republican secretary of state, and Colorado’s election clerks are navigating uncharted territory in crossing out non-citizens before an Aug. 8 deadline – three months before the November general election.

”My goal really is to get something squared away in the next week or so, move expeditiously with this,” Gessler said.

Keep the first sentence in mind as you read a version of the story from a few hours earlier:

Colorado’s top elections officer is rushing [Pols emphasis] to use a federal immigration database to eliminate ineligible voters in the coming weeks as a deadline looms…

Full stop–do you want Gessler “rushing” through the process of “eliminating ineligible voters?”

Break out the red pen, folks!

As you can see, the newer story is fleshed out considerably from the original with much more detail, but keen-eyed observers will take note of the replacement of the word “rushing” with the words “moving quickly.” To be clear, none of this is a problem, it’s inevitable in the age of online publishing that stories will be updated and clarified after an initial version goes up. With syndicated wire stories, sometimes several versions will end up on different partner sites.

But given what Gessler is doing, you’ve got to wonder if maybe he asked for this particular edit.


Full story: Gessler Might Prefer a Different Choice of Words

Homeland Security Gives Gessler Okay for Citizenship Check

0
  by: nancycronk Tue July 17, 2012 at 9:11 AM MDT

Source: AP

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has given Secretary of State Scott Gessler permission to use SAVE — Systematic Alienation Verification for Entitlements — to check citizenship status on thousands of Colorado voters. The system is currently used by government programs such as Medicaid to determine who is, and who is not, eligible for assistance.

Today’s announcement came one week after State Attorney General John Suthers threatened to sue DHS over use of the system. Two days ago, DHS gave similar permission to the State of Florida’s election officials.

Matt Inzeo, spokesperson for the Colorado Democratic Party, expressed concern about the possibility partisanship may have played a role in Suther’s judgment. According to Andrew Cole, spokesperson for Gessler, voters who are suspected of not being citizens will receive a letter alerting them they have been flagged as a non-citizen, and asking them if an error has been made. The County clerks would then have the responsibility of deleting voters who cannot prove their citizenship.

Discuss


Full story: Homeland Security Gives Gessler Okay for Citizenship Check

DHS Hands Gessler Voter Purge Victory?

15
  by: Colorado Pols Mon July 16, 2012 at 9:30 PM MDT

UPDATE: Colorado Secretary of State Scott Gessler praises the decision in a brief statement:

“As Colorado’s chief election official, protecting our elections is my top priority. I’m pleased that DHS has agreed to work with states to verify the citizenship of people on the voter rolls and help reduce our vulnerability. Coloradans deserve to know we have these most basic protections for election integrity.”

—–

There are conflicting opinions this morning about the full meaning of a decision this weekend by the federal Department of Homeland Security to cooperate, with important restrictions, with the state of Florida’s request for information on non-citizens their Republican governor and Secretary of State believe may be illegally registered to vote. Politico reports today on what will soon most likely be a major story in Colorado:

Florida Gov. Rick Scott said Monday an agreement between the Sunshine State and the Department of Homeland Security “creates a path” for other states to purge their voter rolls of non-citizens.

An agreement Sunday between DHS and Florida Secretary of State Ken Detzner gives Florida access to the federal SAVE – Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements – database, which should allow the purge to restart. The database lists legal immigrants and green card-holders who aren’t eligible to vote. It doesn’t contain the names of illegal immigrants…

“The right to vote is a sacred right,” Scott said. “We gotta make sure a U.S. citizen’s right to vote is not diluted.”

…Five presidential swing states – Ohio, Michigan, North Carolina, Colorado and Nevada – are among those hoping to use the DHS database to check their own voter rolls, according to CNN and the Associated Press.

“Hopefully,” Scott said, the agreement “creates a path for other states that have the same concerns.” [Pols emphasis]

We talked this past weekend about the related request from Colorado Secretary of State Scott Gessler for access to information about some 5,000 registered voters he believes may be illegally registered. Based on a “spot check” of immigration detainee records from local jails, Gessler found 85 possibly illegally registered voters, 29 of whom may have voted since 2010. We haven’t seen any response from Gessler yet to DHS’s agreement with Florida, but there’s a possibility that he won’t find it adequate. Even if he does, everything we said about the possibility of “matching mistakes” made by Gessler doing harm in excess of the “gain” of purging a tiny number of illegal voters applies–mitigated only by the restrictions from DHS impeding that.

Like we said, this is more a question of motives. Previous evidence submitted by Gessler has been found wanting based on the normal rate of naturalization of new citizens. Gessler’s “spot check” uncovered possible problem registrations that, while important, must be put in perspective with all kinds of benign errors that occur in every election. How many babies can tolerably be thrown out with the proverbial bathwater? Is one too many?

Gov. Rick Scott makes clear above which side of the debate he’s arguing from, “dilution,” and Gessler will no doubt agree–with Colorado’s GOP Attorney General John Suthers. A different variable in Colorado is the fact that our governor is a Democrat, and John Hickenlooper could change the game here if he decides to start questioning the process (or motives).

We’ll update when we have a clearer sense what this fluid story means here in Colorado.


Full story: DHS Hands Gessler Voter Purge Victory?

Gessler’s 29 Maybe-Illegal Voters: Don’t Take The Bait

17
  by: Colorado Pols Sat July 14, 2012 at 7:45 PM MDT

In your Friday news dump yesterday, this brief AP story:

Colorado Secretary of State Scott Gessler is investigating 85 people who may have been illegally registered to vote.

A spokesman for Gessler says jail records are being checked for people being detained as illegal immigrants to see if they match names in the state’s voter database.

Which points back to yesterday’s Denver paper, where reporter Sara Burnett covers a “spot check” done by Secretary of State Scott Gessler’s office into the possibility of noncitizens being registered to vote. In his latest attempt to uncover what he insists in the absence of much evidence is a major problem, Gessler’s office checked immigration detainees in Colorado with voter rolls, and found 85 persons who appear both in that list and a list of registered voters. Of that 85, some 29 are marked as “active” voters, meaning they appear to have voted since 2010.

We haven’t heard anything yet about the matching methodology used by Gessler’s office to match these names; the precision (or lack thereof) could potentially validate or severely undermine Gessler’s contention right there. As quoted in the Denver paper, voting rights groups like Mi Familia Vota and Common Cause aren’t taking issue with the specific assertion that 29 people may have voted illegally, but pointing out the “bad use of resources” given the small number relative to millions of votes cast in any general election. 29 votes out of 1.6 million cast in 2010 would be well below the rate of many other kinds of election errors that benignly occur.

This is taking place as Gessler, with help from fellow Republican Attorney General John Suthers, press the Department of Homeland Security for access to immigration records on some 5,000 voters Gessler finds questionable based on the fact that they may have presented noncitizen documents when they received their driver’s license. Many of you will recall the fight Gessler waged unsuccessfully in the legislature and the media in 2011, when opponents noted that “possible noncitizen registered voters” he introduced as evidence then could be fully accounted for by the number of Colorado residents who became U.S. citizens afterwards.

Our view: Democrats need to be careful about pooh-poohing the significance of any number of potentially illegal voters–not because the small number isn’t a valid point, it honestly is. But the rhetorical counter from Gessler, that his job is to ensure the integrity of voter rolls, and that even one illegal voter dilutes everyone else’s vote, will have purchase with a lot of voters.

Democrats need to talk about this in terms of effort expended versus the potential gain–and what that says about Gessler’s real motives. Despite the ambitious timeline given to the Department of Homeland Security, there’s an honest question whether his office could complete the process of checking these registrations before the deadline next month protecting voter registrations from cancelation under federal law. Errors in that process could result in valid voter registrations being canceled with little time to remedy the situation.

Bottom line: it’s not that 29 maybe-illegal voters should be dismissed out of hand as irrelevant, or whatever likely very small percentage of the 5,000 voters Gessler wants to scrutinize might turn out to be faulty. But put in perspective with both the total number of votes cast in any election, and all the other ways ballots are miscast, misplaced, or miscounted in an election, it becomes a question of justifying the effort expended. And given the “mistakes” Gessler could make against perfectly legal voters right before an election, a question of justifiable harm.


Full story: Gessler’s 29 Maybe-Illegal Voters: Don’t Take The Bait

On Radio, Gessler says his office erred in saying 430 noncitizens asked to be taken off voter rolls

1
  by: Jason Salzman Sat July 14, 2012 at 12:09 AM MDT

On his KOA radio show June 11, Mike Rosen asked Secretary of State Scott Gessler about a paragraph toward the end of a  July 10 Denver Post article about Gessler’s efforts to get the Department of Homeland Security review lists of voters.

Rosen read a sentence from The Post article stating that 430 people had asked state officials to remove their names from the voter rolls because they were not U.S. citizens.

Then Rosen and Gessler had this exchange:

Gessler: “Well, let me tell you exactly what’s going on. There’s a little bit of a misquote there. We’ve got 430 people statewide over the last several years who either, when they filled out a voter-registration form said, I am not a citizen, and some of them, many of them, were erroneously registered to vote.”

Rosen: They checked the wrong box when they filled out the form?

Gessler: Well, there’s a question as to whether they checked the wrong box or the right box. I think a lot of people are being truthful. They are saying they are not a citizen but they think they have the right to vote, which they don’t. Or they actually wrote us, and there are a lot of people who wrote us. And I say ‘us,’ the state, one of the clerks and recorders or someone like that, and said, please remove me from the voting rolls. I am not a citizen… They were not on the voting rolls. We’ve taken those people off.

Gessler is saying there’s an incorrect statement in The Post, and it appears to come from Gessler spokesman Rich Coolidge, that 430 people contacted the state and asked to be removed from the voter rolls.

What’s the correct figure? He doesn’t appear to know, and that’s what media types need to keep in mind when Gessler makes any numerical utterance.


Full story: On Radio, Gessler says his office erred in saying 430 noncitizens asked to be taken off voter rolls

Former House Comms Director has yogurt recommendations for Gessler, Hick, McNulty, and others

1
  by: Jason Salzman Fri July 13, 2012 at 6:12 AM MDT

Westord’s Patricia Calhoun reports that Katie Reinisch, the former director of communications for state House Democrats, is now running a Red Mango yogurt shop near East High School.

Calhoun quotes Reinisch’s recommendations,  if some of the people she used to see at the state Capitol stop by her store:

Secretary of State Scott Gessler, whose nickname is “Honey Badger”: Honey Badger with gummy worms and cinnamon bears so he could bite the heads off. (By the way, our wesome Honey Badger is made with two ingredients: our own yogurt and Colorado clover honey from Rice’s in Greeley.)

Governor John Hickenlooper: After noticing that we don’t have a beer flavor, he’d swirl Original with Pomegranate — and also try Chocolate with Peanut Butter…thereby disappointing some onlookers but not terribly upsetting anyone.

Sal Pace, Joe Miklosi and Brandon Schafer : Since they’re busy campaigning for Congress, they’d send surrogates who keep asking others for “just a little,” over and over again, until everyone ignores them.

Former Governor Bill Ritter: He’d ride his bike here and get so distracted admiring the beetle-kill pine, the CFL bulbs, the low-flow toilets that Jeanne would have to mix him a cup of white peach and black cherry.

Senator Pat Steadman and representatives Mark Ferrandino and BJ Nikkel: They’d top their cups with a colorful array of mini-M&Ms and rainbow sprinkles, even as some GOP legislators pelted BJ with Sour Patch Kids.

Speaker Frank McNulty: He’d want a mango smoothie; no, a cup of chocolate; no, he hates it; no, he loves it; no, he disapproves, but won’t stop it. Oh, look, he’s leaving empty-handed.

Former senator Ken Gordon: He’d make a fuss about who paid for all this.




Full story: Former House Comms Director has yogurt recommendations for Gessler, Hick, McNulty, and others

Tell Us How You Really Feel, Scott Gessler

28
  by: Colorado Pols Mon June 25, 2012 at 11:52 PM MDT

Some viral-worthy video of Colorado Secretary of State Scott Gessler fowarded to us this past weekend, from a speech on “election integrity” he give before the Broomfield 9.12 Group just over a week ago at Sill-Terhar Motors. Here’s a transcript:

SCOTT GESSLER: So obviously, this is, uh, we’ve got a big election coming up, and everyone’s I think properly very intensely involved, but there’s always a lot of uptightness involved, lots of accusations hurled about. So let me tell you a little about what we’re looking at, at least from my perspective, in the election. I mean, how do you, how do you know if you have a good election?

Well, Republicans win of course. [Pols emphasis]

Now, no no, I didn’t say that. From the Secretary of State’s standpoint, how do you know if you’ve had a good election?

OFF CAMERA: Uh Scott, we just talked about voter fraud just a little while ago, and, [unintelligible]

GESSLER: Yeah.

We’ve got the whole video of Gessler’s Broomfield 9.12er presentation, which we, and we suspect a few others are closely reviewing today. We’ll post more clips as they jump out at us, this might not even be the best one–but a joke about how a “good election” is when “Republicans win” sounds particularly funny coming from Colorado’s chief elections officer!

If you don’t agree, the problem must be that you don’t have Gessler’s sense of humor.


Full story: Tell Us How You Really Feel, Scott Gessler

Hyberbolic television coverage of hyperbolic Gessler

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  by: Jason Salzman Tue June 12, 2012 at 1:46 AM MDT

( – promoted by Colorado Pols)



With a straight face, Colorado Secretary of State Scott Gessler told KOAA-TV, Channel 5, in CO Springs on Saturday:

Gessler: I think that [people allegedly receiving two ballots in the mail] really underscores the need to have measures, and these are things I’ve been pushing for a while, to make sure we’ve got accurate voter rolls. So this is a really disturbing, systemic issue that’s going on in Pueblo now and we need to get to the bottom of this very quickly.

“Systemic” issue?

Gessler told KOAA-TV that an undetermined number of people in Pueblo received two election ballots, after they changed their voter registration information.

In KOAA-TV’s story on Saturday, the evidence for this was…. Well, there was none. Only the claim of Gessler:

KOAA-TV: The Secretary of State told us the problem started at the Clerk and Recorder’s Office. People who changed their voter registration had a second profile made in the system, resulting in the extra ballot….

The Secretary of State says the biggest worry is people who do vote twice will dilute votes of those with one ballot, making for inaccurate election results.

So, if you believe Gessler, the election system is teetering toward free fall.

And unfortunately neither the Pueblo County Clerk, who allegedly caused the problem, nor any other source was interviewed to present a countervailing opinion (though, to its credit, KOAA-TV did interview the clerk for a subsequent story, in which he said the issue should not affect election results).

Instead, for the Saturday piece, someone named Clarice Navarro appeared on the screen and said:

Navarro: It makes you question how valid each election is, and elections are very important to the state of Colorado and Pueblo in general. So it’s very concerning.

KOAA-TV failed to tell us that Navarro is a Republican State House candidate in the Pueblo area. And she’s a former staffer for Republican Rep. Scott Tipton.

Also unreported was the fact that Gessler and Pueblo’s Clerk and Recorder, Gilbert Ortiz, are in litigation over Gessler’s efforts to block the Ortiz’s decision to send mail ballots to voters who missed the last election.

The Ortiz-Gessler dispute might be part of the explanation for Gessler’s sky-is-falling response to what appears to be minor problem, involving ballots that may actually never be submitted.

And, if they were submitted, the election system is designed to identify duplicate ballots and ensure that only one is counted, as Ortiz pointed out in KOAA-TV’s follow-up story.

Gessler’s response to Ortiz is very different from Gessler’s treatment of Teller County Clerk & Recorder J.J. Jamison’s acknowledged mistake last week of mailing 4,100 ballots that omitted a line for voters to sign their ballot. The signature on mail-in ballots is essential to protecting against voter fraud.

Here’s what Gessler told the Colorado Springs Gazette about Jamison’s mistake:

“We’ll be OK on this,” said Secretary of State Scott Gessler told the Gazette. “I know in about every election, somehow, some way, a mistake is made. People run elections and people make mistakes.”

KOAA-TV concluded its report in full breathlessness:

KOAA-TV: But how this error will impact the election…and voters’ confidence in our government, is yet to be seen.

With sloppy, hyperbolic reporting about a Secretary of State who fear mongers, maybe that’s true.

But if the facts about Colorado’s election system are reported, it’s more likely that voters will have a crisis of confidence in our Secretary of State, not our voting system.


Full story: Hyberbolic television coverage of hyperbolic Gessler

Scott Walker, Meet Scott Gessler

8
  by: Colorado Pols Tue May 22, 2012 at 12:14 AM MDT

As the Colorado Independent’s John Tomasic reports:

In the last two years, Colorado Secretary of State Scott Gessler has made voter fraud prevention a top priority. His efforts have included working to stop county clerks from sending absentee ballots to inactive voters, lobbying for a controversial voter ID law and leading an unprecedented effort to determine whether noncitizens are voting in the state.

Critics have questioned Gessler’s priorities, given that the number of documented incidents of voter fraud in Colorado is tiny…

In an interview with the Weekly Standard, Walker said he thought fraud typically accounted for 2 percent of the vote in the state and likely swayed elections.

Using what we assume is similar “fuzzy math” as Colorado Secretary of State Scott Gessler, supporters of embattled Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker warn of dire consequences for his recall election next month–implying substantially more than a token number of “fraudulent” voters.

“As we’ve been telling you, the liberal power network is pulling out all the stops to RECALL Gov. Scott Walker. We’ve now received news that liberal judges have teamed up to block Wisconsin’s new Voter ID law,” wrote Walker supporters at the the Campaign to Defeat Obama in an email last month.

“This means we will not be able to fight voter fraud, and this means that our margin of victory must be much larger now [Pols emphasis] – to compensate for any fraudulent ballots cast by RECALL proponents.”

Got that? A “much larger margin of victory” is needed, because the absence of a voter ID law means the state of Wisconsin “will not be able to fight voter fraud.”

Which makes you assume there is a lot of voter fraud in Wisconsin, doesn’t it?

After the 2008 presidential election, Wisconsin Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen and Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm formed an Election Fraud Task Force to investigate.

In February of 2011, the Department of Justice released a statement on the results of that investigation: Authorities charged 11 felons for voting, 6 people for voter registration misconduct and 2 people for voting twice.

So which is it, folks? Will the margin that decides Wisconsin’s gubernatorial recall election next month be fewer than 20 votes, or are these scare-tactic warnings that vote fraudsters are lining up to steal Walker’s recall election in need of a reality check?

Don’t feel bad, we can’t get a good explanation for this discrepancy from our Scott, either.


Full story: Scott Walker, Meet Scott Gessler

James O’Keefe: Not Helping Scott Gessler

9
  by: Colorado Pols Thu May 17, 2012 at 12:16 AM MDT

Yesterday, right-wing news site Breitbart.com released a new video from conservative “gotcha” artist James O’Keefe, purportedly showing how easy it is for “non-citizens” to vote:

In the video, William Romero, an apparent non-citizen, is shown to be registered to vote in North Carolina. According to jury refusal records obtained by Project Veritas, Romero was recused for being a non-citizen. Yet when a researcher from Project Veritas went into the polling station, he found that not only was Romero still on the voting rolls but  the poll workers were also more than willing to give him Romero’s ballot.

The video finds that another alleged non-citizen in Durham County, North Carolina, was on the voter rolls–and apparently voted in 2008 and 2010–even though he had been categorized as “code 7″ in jury recusal forms, which means he had been excused as a non-citizen.

In another crucial swing state, Florida, elections officials fear as many as 180,000 non-citizens may be registered to vote. In Colorado, during the 2010 midterm elections, 5,000 non-citizens may have voted…

As you know, we (and others) have repeatedly debunked this persistent claim that “5,000 noncitizens may have voted” in the 2010 elections in Colorado. The claim originates with Colorado Secretary of State Scott Gessler, who used this figure in congressional testimony, but it doesn’t stand up to even casual scrutiny. As we noted and local media outlets realized last year, over thirty thousand Colorado residents became citizens during the period Gessler “analyzed,” enough to easily account for the 5,000 “noncitizens” who “may” have voted in 2010.

As liberal blog Think Progress reports, O’Keefe appears to have made exactly the same error.

ThinkProgress spoke with [Zbigniew] Gorzkowski this morning. He verified that this information was indeed correct and he had been an American citizen since the late 1980s. Therefore, his votes in the 2008 and 2010 elections were not only perfectly legal, but encouraged as a civic duty.

In other words, the one instance in the video where O’Keefe purports to show that a non-citizen had actually voted, in fact shows that a citizen voted.

The episode does speak to a larger underlying problem with most accusations of voter fraud. It’s what I call the “Scooby Doo routine”. People like O’Keefe make wild voter fraud accusations like non-citizens voting, only to discover a much simpler explanation for the situation…

Note that O’Keefe said he found two such “non-citizens.”

[William] Romero’s family told ThinkProgress he became a naturalized citizen in early 2011.

What’s more, Romero’s family told ThinkProgress that they had began receiving harassing telephone calls two weeks before the incident in the video asking if Romero was a citizen. They confirmed to the caller – it’s unclear whether they were speaking with O’Keefe himself or another individual – that Romero is indeed a citizen. Nevertheless, O’Keefe proceeded to ambush the family at their home and publish this video claiming he’s not a citizen.

One member of his family, who was confronted in O’Keefe’s video as he came home to care for his sick son, was incensed by the charge, calling it “completely absurd.”

Bottom line: this story should help explain why, although Secretary of State Gessler has repeatedly thrown around accusations suggesting that “thousands” of non-citizens “may have voted,” including spreading the 5,000 figure used in the Breitbart.com story above, he has never produced a documented example of this actually having happened.

Because Gessler would most likely end up looking like James O’Keefe.


Full story: James O’Keefe: Not Helping Scott Gessler

BREAKING: Civil Unions Bill Passes Out of House Judiciary Committee

14
  by: nancycronk Fri May 4, 2012 at 6:39 AM MDT

(One small vote for Nikkel, one slightly larger step toward equality. – promoted by ProgressiveCowgirl)



At 9:30pm, House Republican Representative BJ Nickkel cast the deciding vote to get SB2 out of the House Judiciary Committee.

Earlier today, it was rumored that Rep. Nikkel had changed her mind from a previous “no” vote. Speakers signed in as early as 1pm, and observers wearing red waited through hours of other bills, including the bill to make driving under the influence of marijuana illegal. As hours passed, many pro-civil unions supporters wondered aloud in the hallway if the bill would be heard in committee at all.

SB2, also known as the Civil Unions bill, began after a very quick vote on Secretary of State Gessler’s election procedure reform bill. Upon completion of the election bill vote, Representative Ferrandino joked, “I hope the next bill will also go as quickly”, to very loud laughter.

In attendance at the hearing were the same cast of people seen last year: representatives from One Colorado, Father Carmady, Rosina Kovar (aka the “crazy” church lady), three gay College Republicans, and a sea of red t-shirt wearing young people. (When I signed in at 1pm to testify, Rosina Kovar was standing behind me and also signed in. Due to predetermined speaker’s lists and a one hour time limit, neither of us were able to speak, however.)

Supporter’s speeches were very heavy on the “I am also a person of faith” side (I confess, that is what I had prepared as well), and there were more than a few pro-civil unions Republicans. One of them was Legal Counsel for Governor Hickenlooper, who spoke honestly about his personal life and his long-term relationship.  

As soon as Rep. Nikkel voted “Aye”, twitter and facebook were ablaze with excitement. Numerous tweets called Rep. Nikkel a “hero”, a “trailblazer”, and “courageous”. Several tweets referred to a post-vote celebration at Hamburger Mary’s (a popular lgbt hangout).

My understanding is SB2 now goes on to the Appropriations and Finance Committees, before being heard on the House floor. Whether or not those things happen quickly (or at all) before the legislative session ends, is up to Speaker Of The House, Frank McNulty.  


Full story: BREAKING: Civil Unions Bill Passes Out of House Judiciary Committee