As the Craig Daily Press' Joe Moylan reports:
For Colorado Secretary of State Scott Gessler, there was no more blatant example of partisan political power than House Bill 13-1303, a 128-page rewrite of Colorado’s voting laws…
On Saturday, Gessler was the featured speaker during the annual Moffat County Republican Party Lincoln Day Dinner at the Holiday Inn of Craig. During his 20-minute address, Gessler outlined for about 40 local residents the flaws he sees in the new law and criticized Gov. John Hickenlooper as being a rubber-stamp governor for a partisan state Legislature…
“We outperform almost every other state in terms of voter turnout and we outperform the eight same-day voter registration states,” Gessler said. [Pols emphasis] “This wasn’t a problem that needed to be solved. Not one Republican amendment was accepted and not one person from my office was consulted on this bill.”
Our friend John Tomasic of the Colorado Independent directs us to this George Mason University chart of voter turnout in the 2012 elections:
State |
VEP Highest Office Turnout Rate |
VEP Total Ballots Counted Turnout Rate |
Colorado | 70.3% | 71.1% |
Minnesota (SDR) | 75.7% | 76.1% |
And that's "Today in BS," folks.
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Pshawh! That 5 point difference is easily explained: they were all illegal fraudulent voter that Gessler *prevented* from happening here in Colorado!
It's easy to get high turnout if you let just anyone vote…
Yes. I know it looks bad, but actually thank God for Gessler, what he meant is that CO SHOULD be 5% less.
I can't even fake it. What a useless lying fuckhead.
Perhaps he was mistaken in the case of Minnesota. But he's right about most of the SDR states, Colorado's turnout beat them. If this is just a great thing, why did Colorado do better than most states that have it?
You can get hung up on minutia, or you can deal with his point. If you insist on minutia, you've made the choice…
Why are so many of the county clerks in favor? If you cannot explain that away, then you are the one who made a choice.
Actually, that means Gessler was wrong.
No "mistake" about it. The Secretary has been fudging on voter turnout since the this year's election reform bill was introduced. Point is, Colorado has good turnout, but it could be better, and sameday registration will improve it. It's that simple. Minnesota has had sameday registration since 1974 and it consistently ranks highest among the states in voter participation. Incidentally: No more voter fraud there than anywhere else, which is to say, like every where else, almost none.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-p-mcdonald/colorado-turnout_b_3080980.html
It is an irrelevant comparison. The relevant comparison is whether SDR increases turnout in a state compared to not having SDR in a state. Comparing different states is just stupid–but I would expect nothing less from Gessler.
Since turn out is measured against registered voters, a more meaningful look might be at the number of eligible voters who don't bother to register (but might on the day. of an election). I don't have any idea what that number is, but suspect that there are a lot of them at the lower end of the eligible age and many with Latino surnames who feel that nobody is representing them.
Since Gessler's numbers in other areas, such as the number of non-citizens registered to vote for starters, have been proved wildly incorrect, he certainly doesn't deserve any benefit of the doubt. He has established a pattern of putting out incorrect stats as an excuse for his partisan push for maximum suppression of voters he perceives as not likely to be supporters of GOP candidates. He is a disgrace to the office of SOS. That's why so many of his own party's County Clerks, the ones who take pride in running elections as fairly as possible and let the chips fall where they may, refuse to back him up.
What I find interesting here is that Gessler is applying the principle that if there's no problem, there's no need for a change.
Why is it he can't apply that principle to his own actions?