Gessler's Big "Award"--The Rest of the Story

13 thoughts on “Gessler’s Big “Award”–The Rest of the Story”

1. If that software had just one burp in production – that's damn good.

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2. Have you guys ever written something about Gessler that isn't negative?

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   1. In the spirit of repaying a bit of reasonableness and level-headedness that you've shown in your other comments of late, how about letting me take a stab at that . . . ???

      Dateline — circa January 2015

      "Mr. Gessler has had his many detractors, and far too often well-deservedly so . . . but we would be complely remiss not to point out the one area in which Mr. Gessler tenure as SOS truly excelled by all accounts:  Mr. Gessler comported himself in the office of SOS incessantly and tirelessly so as to make it possible, nay — even ensure, that every other Colorado SOS, past and future will be looked at as reasonable, and a stunning success, by comparison.  And for this alone, we owe him a debt of thanks upon his leaving. " 

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   2. Short answer…No.

      But then, the present guvs are openly partisan. If you wish to extoll Gessler's virtues, I imagine that the floor is all yours. 

      That said, I agree with David's comment above. Every major software roll-out is likely to have issues. For the guvs to criticize Gessler mere days after the less-than-perfect rollout of the health insurance exchanges is perhaps a bit hypocritical. (Though GOTP criticism of the exchange rollout is similarly hypocritical.) 

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      1. Its not just conservatives blasting HHS for the cluster that is the ACA web portal. 

          

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   3. He drives a nice, expensive late model fancy car and not the beat up junker he claimed when he wanted to moonlight for the partisan election law firm while overseeing our most important instituiton as a Free People.   

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   4. Has Gessler ever done anything that deserves anything else?

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   5. When he's dead and encased in a cement.

      Then I'll say, "Good.".

       

       

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3. In my comment on the Edie Hudak thread, I mentioned a positive achievement of Scott Gessler's: 

   Even Elliot's compadre, Secretary of State Scott Gessler, knows that mail in ballots and online voter registration contributed to high voter turnout. In a smarmy and (to me) ironic self-congratulatory pamphlet entitled "2012 General Election Review:
   A Colorado Success Story", Gessler and deputy S.o S Suzanne Staiert crowed that Colorado's turnout had bucked the national trend, going up 1.8%, while nationwide, voter turnout trended downward by 6.8 points. 71% of Colorado voters turned out in 2012, and 97% of mail ballots were returned, according to Mr. Gessler.  From the "Colorado Success Story" linked above:

   According a recently released analysis by George Mason University, at 71.1%, Colorado ranked first in the nation for overall turnout based on voting eligible population, third in the nation for presidential turnout based on voting eligible population, (70.3%), and sixth in the nation for turnout based on voting age population (64.7%).3,4

    

   Here comes the irony: Gessler worked very hard to suppress those mail in ballots in 2012. He attempted to purge "non citizen" voters and "inactive" voters, but kept getting thwarted by the law, and his own election clerks. Yet, he still wants to take credit for Colorado's being #1 in the nation on voter turnout.

   It's disingenuous to look at only part of the picture. Yes, Gessler was a pioneer in online registration. It's also true that 800 voters were kicked off the online registration two weeks before November 2012, and that he attempted to kick off 4,000 "inactive" voters, most of whom voted after the county clerks reached out to them (against Gessler's wishes). 

   And he's been pursuing the same supposed 150 noncitizen voters for three years with no prosecutions.  It's all part of the big picture.

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4. I really like the SoS website. Use it all the time.

   I just wonder how much credit Scott deserves for it and how much credit some underling should get.

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   1. I use TRACER all the time, too,and it's certainly more user friendly than many other state websites for research on campaign committees, businesses, and charities. Virginia's, for example,is a fricking nightmare. The Colorado S o S website itself is well-designed and easy to use. 

      So really, I think that Mr. Gessler is caught between the desire to be professional and expand the franchise of Colorado voters, and the partisan imperative to suppress those same voters. It must be confusing to be this man. It's why we need a Secretary of State who is not torn, who is wholly committed to free and fair voting for all eligible voters. 

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      1. You should be thanking the IT staff, not Gessler.

         And I'm sure Gessler would have loved to outsource that too, if it wasn't for being a state employee.

          

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5. Nuance isn't really your thing, is it, Hawkeye?

   That's OK. You can rest assured that I'm no fan of Mr. Gessler, and will in fact do everything possible to make sure he is replaced by a Democrat, Mr. Neguse.

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