A pro-Latino voter plackard reads 'Our voice is our vote, we are the political force.' (Photo/Erin Rosa)

To help with the momentous task — which goes above and beyond current federal voting regulations pertaining to bilingual speakers — is the city’s Spanish Language Voting Advisory Committee, also called ACCESO, the Spanish word for “access.”

Federal regulations require Denver, with an estimated Latino population of 35 percent, to provide bilingual poll workers to at least 133 out of the 185 of voting precincts that will be used during the election, according to Alton Dillard, spokesman for the Denver Elections Division.

“There are precincts that we are actually required to cover, but we always try to go over and above,” said Dillard. This year especially — with record turnout already being reported in early voting and mail-in ballot tallies, and Latino populations surging in the state — it’s going to be important to have an adequate number of Spanish and bilingual speakers.

“It’s created a different dynamic,” Dillard said, noting that the city is only 40 individuals short of reaching its recruiting goal of one bilingual poll worker for all 185 precincts. The shortfall is expected to be resolved by Election Day because of daily recruiting efforts by city officials and ACCESO.

Paul Lopez, a Denver city councilman who sits on the ACCESO committee, says that providing Spanish-speaking poll workers could affect election results in Denver, with a high Latino population.

“We are having more people registered all across the board and that includes folks that are Spanish speaking,” Lopez says. “Anyone that can speak a second language is going to be very helpful and very critical to voter turnout.”

Ballots in the Mile High City are also required to be printed in English and Spanish. Federal regulations require this of cities whose population of Spanish speakers is more than 5 percent.

ACCESO was formed in 2002, shortly after the U.S. Department of Justice notified Denver that it would need to print bilingual ballots under federal law.

Dillard described the advisory committee as a resource to help recruit of poll workers from the Spanish-speaking community, with outreach focused on “a particular concentration of areas of town where there is a high Latino population.

Ads soliciting bilingual poll workers were placed in a number of Spanish-language newspapers and the board also set up a Web site in Spanish as a resource on election issues.

“It may or may not come up, but having someone there to connect with the bilingual voters is important,” said Isaac Medrano of Democracia U.S.A., a non-partisan Latino civic engagement organization that operates in a number of battleground states, including Colorado.

“Both sides of the aisle are working to get Latinos on to their side and make sure they come out and vote,” said Medrano. “To ask the questions that people get asked during an election, individuals, regardless of their race, may have a problem with the language.”

The poll worker spots in Denver are paid positions, and more information can be found at Denver Votes.

Denver Elections Director Mike Scarpello (left) and Clerk and Recorder spokesman Alton Dillard in the city

Denver’s election director, Mike Scarpello, said he is concerned about the possibility that thousands of people will come to the polls on Nov. 4 and find that they are not registered to vote. And he’s looking for a way to fix the problem.

At least 6,700 new voter registrations—and, by one estimate, as many as 10,000—were rejected by county clerks statewide because of the so-called “check box” problem. The new voter registration form in Colorado asks individuals without a state driver’s license or identification card to check a box indicating as much and enter the last four digits of their Social Security numbers. However, many would-be voters neglected to check the box, or used their social security number when they did indeed have state identification. The discrepancy has prompted clerks to delay registrations until the individuals amend their forms.

In the past, the Denver Clerk and Recorder’s Office downplayed the gravity of the problem. Last week, spokesman Alton Dillard said that “the talk going on about people being denied the right to vote because of this is incorrect.” Around 3,000 individuals in Denver filled out incomplete forms and 1,000 of those have been fixed. But the clerk’s office still has 5,800 forms to process, which means that more “check box” applications will likely surface.

On Tuesday Scarpello said he is in discussions with the Secretary of State Mike Coffman’s office to remedy the issue. Scarpello is looking into allowing individuals with incomplete registrations to “cure” their forms at the polls on Election Day, a fix he believes to be kosher under state law. But he admitted that there may be legal issues to contend with; add to this the fact that the new voter database, called SCORE, may not be equipped to handle last-minute changes to voter registration.

Yesterday, a group of activists from several watchdog groups demanded that Coffman immediately fix the “check box” problem by admitting incomplete registrations. Rich Coolidge, spokesman for the Secretary of State, has not responded to requests for comment, but according to The Denver Post, Coffman hasn’t budged on the issue.

“Whatever the decision the secretary of state makes, we will abide by that,” said Scarpello.

But his office is taking small steps to ensure that “check box” applicants change their forms. Along with the SCORE-generated letter, his office has sent reminders to all would-be voters, asking them to make the fix in person or by mail.

Those who don’t make the changes can vote by provisional ballot at the polls.

(Photo/unquiet, Flickr)

Voting rights experts upbraided Colorado Secretary of State Mike Coffman today for shirking federal law by rejecting as many as 10,000 new voter applications.

In a letter to Coffman, representatives of eight organizations, including the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Colorado, Colorado Common Cause and the Fair Elections Legal Network in Washington, D.C., demanded that the secretary of state’s office direct county clerks to accept applications with minor omissions or technical mistakes.

“The policy put out by the Secretary of State unfairly punishes a significant portion of the Colorado electorate,” says Elena Nuñez, program director with Colorado Common Cause.

At issue is a new voter registration form that Coffman approved for use this year in order to comply with the 2002 Help America Vote Act. The form, which voter watchdog groups say is unclearly worded, asks voters without Colorado identification to enter the last four digits of their Social Security number, plus check a box to indicate that they don’t have state ID. However, thousands of voters — at least 3,100 in Denver alone — either did not check the box or erroneously used their Social Security number when they should have entered a driver’s license number.

The forms contained enough information to verify the voter’s eligibility, however county clerks all over the state rejected the applications. Voting rights experts say that this practice is “inconsistent” with a 1971 federal law mandating elections officials to accept incomplete voter registration forms, so long as they could ascertain that the applicant is indeed eligible to vote.

“Even though they provided the forms they needed, they might not get to vote,” says Nuñez. “We are asking that their registrations be completed so they can participate.”

The letter also raised concerns that county clerks — overwhelmed by sorting through hundreds of thousands of new voter applications — have delayed addressing these incomplete forms. That cuts down the amount of time that an applicant has to amend his or her faulty form.

In the case that the secretary of state’s office refuses to change course, representatives from the groups called on Coffman and the county clerks to more aggressively reach out to people with incomplete applications. Current practice is for clerks to mail a letter to these individuals, who have until the end of the month to fix their registrations. The voting rights experts urged Coffman to allow these people to amend their registrations over the phone, rather than in person.

“We would love to see the Secretary of State take leadership on the issue and advance a policy of letting eligible voters who filled out forms to get onto the rolls,” says Nuñez. “But if that doesn’t happen, we are asking clerks to make sure the incomplete forms are processed as quickly as possible so there is time for them to get on the rolls.”

Nuñez says that legal action may be on the table if Coffman doesn’t move on the issue.

Secretary of State spokesman Richard Coolidge did not respond to repeated requests for comment.

Denver County Clerk spokesman Alton Dillard has recently downplayed the severity of the issue, saying, “The talk going on about people being denied the right to vote because of this is incorrect.”

The voting rights experts, on the other hand, say the problem could only get worse as county clerks are still processing applications ahead of Election Day.

(Photo/unquiet, Flickr)

Colorado’s confusing voter registration form has prompted county clerks to reject at least 4,800 new voter applications. And while election officials say there’s still time for the applicants to get onto voter rolls, watchdog groups warn of unintended disenfranchisement.

Colorado’s Secretary of State office issued a new voter registration form this year to allow applicants the option to permanently receive a mail-in ballot. But in its inaugural year, the form has caused confusion among voter registration groups and the more than 215,000 people they’ve signed up. At issue is the ID requirement in the state. An applicant with a Colorado driver’s license or a state ID must enter his or her ID number on the form. In the case that the individual does not have either of those cards, that person may enter the last four digits of his or her social security number plus check a box to indicate that he or she doesn’t have a state card.

Problem is, thousands of applicants — most of them students from out of state, as well as elderly individuals without driver’s licenses — have accidentally entered their social security numbers without checking the box. Others who do have driver’s licenses have entered their social security numbers anyway. In Denver alone, around 3,100 applicants have been kept off the rolls for this so-called “check box” problem. And in Boulder, another 1,700 applicants have been rejected for that and other registration form problems. But many more could be rejected in the next few days. Voter registration ended on Monday, and county clerks are still processing forms.

“Large numbers of people are not going to make it onto the voter registration rolls for a minor mistake,” says Sarah Brannon, staff attorney with the Fair Elections Legal Network, a nonpartisan voter participation group in Washington, D.C. “The form could be more clearly worded. There are questions about the fairness of not allowing people to get on the voter rolls.”

“The impact [of the new form] is much greater than expected,” adds Jenny Flanagan, executive director of Common Cause, a Colorado nonprofit aimed at holding elected leaders accountable. “There are many registration forms without the box checked that include the social security number.”

According to ACORN (short for the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now), a national nonpartisan group that has registered more than 65,000 new voters in Colorado, the Denver County clerk’s office warned registration circulators a few weeks ago about the problem.

“Denver called us and said, ‘We are getting a few too many people with driver’s licenses putting down the last four numbers of their social,” says Ben Hanna, ACORN’s Colorado director.

In order to prevent more problems, Hanna’s circulators made sure to ask applicants trying to use their social security number if they had a driver’s license at home. If they answered ‘yes,’ the circulators told the applicants to come back with that ID, rather than risk having a faulty application rejected by county clerks. And if applicants were indeed eligible to use their social, the circulators asked them to check the little box.

But, says Hanna, “There’s only so much that we can do. At the end of the day our circulators place no marks on the form and they don’t fill them out. It is on the applicant.”

The Boulder and Denver county clerks offices have notified applicants with deficient registration forms so they can fix them before the election. In order to vote early, applicants must amend their forms before Oct. 20. Otherwise, they must make the changes by Oct. 31, when, says Denver County Clerk and Recorder spokesman Alton Dillard, the county finalizes its poll book. Representatives from the Secretary of State’s office did not return phone calls seeking clarification on the issue.

Dillard pooh-poohs the idea that the check box problem will end in voter disenfranchisement. “[Registration issues] happen every election,” he says. “The talk going on about people being denied the right to vote because of this is incorrect.”

But others are not so sure. “I don’t know what the outcome will be,” says Brannon.