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November 08, 2013 03:02 PM UTC

More People Voting: A Good Thing, Unless You're Scott Gessler

  • 11 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols
Scott Gessler.
Scott Gessler.

A press release from Colorado Common Cause today celebrates the first statewide election carried out under House Bill 13-1303, the new Voter Access and Modernized Elections Act passed by the General Assembly this year:

Colorado’s voters are the big winners in the inauguration of a new modernized election law on Election Day. More than 267,000 more people voted in this year's Colorado's off-year election than in 2011. Voters noticed few differences from prior elections, but had more options and more services on Tuesday.

For the first time, every registered voter received a mail ballot, but with the option to mail it back, drop it off or vote in person. In the past, some elections were conducted by mail, others were not, creating confusion among voters as to whether their ballot would arrive in the mail. Last November, more than 70% of Colorado chose to vote by mail.

“The new election law is designed to make voting more accessible and simpler for voters. And it worked. Problems reported on our nonpartisan voter hotline on Election Day were much easier to solve this year. If someone had moved, needed to update their registration information or replace a ruined ballot, we could direct them to any voter service center in their county right up to Election Day. In the past, it was much more complicated and many people just gave up,” said Elena Nunez, executive director of Colorado Common Cause.

The Denver Post's Joey Bunch has some analysis of this year's strong turnout, which can be fairly attributed to polarizing ballot measures in addition to the state's accommodating new voting laws:

What drove the increase? A lot of things. Some of it could be attributed to almost 212,000 more registered voters since 2011 — from 3,350,219 two years ago to 3,562,184 on Tuesday. Colorado legislators this year also made mail-balloting the law, rather than just an option. The state has allowed voters to chose to get a ballot mailed to them for quite awhile, and in the general election last year 74 percent chose to do so. This year, that number grew to 100 percent of those, plus many more who had been deemed “inactive” for not voting in recent elections. Getting a ballot without leaving home likely pulled many of them still living in the state back into the fold.

But don't tell any of that to Colorado Secretary of State Scott Gessler, House Bill 1303's most ardent opponent.

Minutes before the polls closed Tuesday night, Gessler laid out to me all the things his office had done to get the new law working in time, with much more to do before next year’s much larger general election. He sent staff to about 30 of the state’s 64 counties to help them with procedures, technology and security, so Gessler said he wasn’t surprised the law worked without many Election Day hitches. “From a policy standpoint, it’s been disastrous,” Gessler said. “From a technology standpoint, it’s also a disaster.” [Pols emphasis]

Now folks, what do you suppose the "disaster" was? Was it a "disaster" that so many more people voted? That Gessler's office had to actually do some work to implement the new law? We assume the "disaster" wasn't Amendment 66's lopsided defeat, because that wouldn't make sense either coming from a Republican. Ordinarily, you would assume that pronouncing something a "disaster" means you have, you know, evidence to back that up. But when the facts don't validate his scare tactics, Gessler sticks to the script.

Three years ago, it was shocking. Today, we know it's just how Gessler operates.​

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11 thoughts on “More People Voting: A Good Thing, Unless You’re Scott Gessler”

  1. Typical Scott Gessler and typical right-wing whacko Republican statement. In the Republican world, if ideology says its a disaster, it is regardless of the objective facts supporting the exact opposite conclusion. SOS Gessler was vehemently against HB13-1303 that put Colorado elections, begining with latest one held last Tuesday, on an all mail-in ballot system. Since Republican ideology deemed such a system as a disater for the state, it therefore was a disaster in the 2013 election because, once again, ironclad ideology said it was.

    Now to the questions for SOS Gessler. What precisely was the technological disaster you refer to that happened on Tuesday, November 5, 2013?

    How did the public policy enacted into law through HB13-1303 that changed our elections from 74% to 100% mail-in ballots represent a public policy disaster on Tuesday, November 5, 2013?

    Surely, Mr. Secretary, as a long time election law lawyer and with three years experience as secretary of state you can point to specific facts that occurred during the 2013 election cycle that support your accusations the recent election was a public policy and technology disaster.

    Please respond.

  2. First off, it's too early to say if fraud was committed. That will take weeks for clerks to sort out.

    Second, to armchair quarterback the Secretary of State's workload is ridiculous. You don't know how many people he has or what he's doing. I've heard this was a major impediment for the SoS and the clerks. Only difference is, the clerks backed the bill and are keeping their mouths shut.

    1. So, are you saying, the Republican and Democratic clerks and their staffs, totaling at least hundreds of individuals, are in a conspiracy of silence to cover-up a public policy and technolgy disaster?

      Since you seem to at imply you know something what public policy and technolgy disasters occurred during the 2013 eleciton cycle?

      Please respond.

    2. It must be late Friday afternoon. I forgot to mention. Since you state:

      First off, it's too early to say if fraud was committed. That will take weeks for clerks to sort out.

      Then you agree it's too early for SOS Gessler to declare the 2013 election was a policy disaster. Right?

      1. Lots of people voted and there were no major glitches. But Gessler, who is SOS and ought to like great turn out with few glitches and who is Republican and ought to like the results, is perfectly justified in calling it a disaster right now even though it will take weeks to find out if any bad stuff at all actually happened. That's n3b's nonsensical spin and he's sticking to it. Yawn.

    3. Why is it that republicans don't like it when a lot of people vote. Oh yes, it's probably because the democrat usually beats the republican in a high turnout elections. republicans love the low turnout elections because they can count on their shrinking righ wing white base to come out and vote for them. We saw what happened recently in VA when the democratic base came out to vote. The tea party nut went down!

  4. Gessler is the biggest hypocrite I have ever seen!  Having spent so much of his career attempting to be part of the "establishment" cirlce, to now being an incredible critic of a group he so hoped to be a part of shows me that he has no true moral compass.

    Be true to who you are Scottie! Otherwise you just look like another desperate Republican willing to do "whatever it takes" to scorch the earth for his own misguided political gain.  He is in for a huge wake-up call when the populous shows what we all already know – he truly is all stetson with no cattle!

  5. How dare anyone ANYONE critique the work of this PUBLIC official!  How DARE YOU.  NoobishCubed is right, he is beyond reproach simply by virtual of being a member of the Denver political elite.  Or not a member of the Denver political elite, I mean.  That is to say a member of the NOT-Denver political elite.  He has to drive a clunker to work it’s an embarrassment!  But he does it because he loves Colorado.  Just as long as too many of them don't vote.  That's just busy work, registering voters, and such. 

  6. I don't know what Gessler means by a voting system being a policy disaster or how one that resulted in high numbers voting with few problems or glitches could be called technical disaster. That kind of sounds like the opposite of the ACA sign up where not enough people are able to go through the process and there are lots of problems and glitches so wouldn't this election be kind of  the opposite of a technical disaster? 

    But I'm confident Fladen can explain to us why Gessler is absolutely right to say what he said.. And it'll be full of expository and conclusory and ipso facto stuff  so the rest of us may as well just surrender preemptively.

  7. thanks for this information.but i have a same question as blue cat said.what does Gessler mean?

    for get some information about this topic, if you liked, visit my homepage.

     

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