Want to be Colorado’s next secretary of state? Don’t embarrass Ritter

Did you ever want to be a Secretary of State, overseeing elections and licensing and all the things that Secretary of States do? Well, your lucky day may be Monday, which is the deadline to apply for consideration to become Colorado’s next Secretary of State. And — this part is important — you must also correctly be able to successfully answer this question, which is actually on the application: “Is there anything in your background that might be an embarrassment to the Governor or you if it were to become public?”

Colorado’s purged voter list grows to 44,000

Controversy over voters who were purged from the rolls continues, as the Denver Post reports Secretary of State Mike Coffman eliminated more than 44,000 voters in recent months, higher than past estimates.

Adams County ‘quarantines’ machine that switched candidate’s vote

An electronic voting machine in Adams County repeatedly failed to accept a vote for a Democratic state Senate candidate — instead registering the vote for her Republican opponent — at an early voting site last week and has been removed from service, the Aurora Sentinel reports Wednesday. Adams County Clerk and Recorder Karen Long told the newspaper the error doesn’t reflect wider problems in the county’s voting systems, but the candidate said the incident could lead to a lawsuit.

Amid scandal, Colorado is at election storm central: Are we ready?

In Colorado, the state with the longest ballot in the country, 215,000 new voters have signed up since January. The woman in charge of the state elections department, Holly Lowder, resigned just weeks ago, after her cozy personal relationship with the beneficiary of several state election-related contracts surfaced. Lowder’s boss, Secretary of State Mike Coffman, is himself the target of longstanding ethics complaints and is overseeing an election that he is also running in — to replace retiring Congressman Tom Tancredo. And, oh yeah, Colorado could be the deciding state for the presidential election.

Hold on tight. It could be a bumpy ride.

There goes the neighborhood

They say these days we just don’t know our neighbors, and except for the nice guy a few doors over and that couple down the hall with the cat, I can’t say I know much about my neighbors, either. So imagine my surprise when fellow “The Boulevard” resident Holly Lowder got a picture of our building into the Rocky! And all because she resigned her post as the top elections official at the SOS office amid a scandal involving housing issues with one of her contractors.

Read more of Jeff’s commentaries:
• Reid to Lieberman: No lunch seat for you!
• Lauri Clapp, darling of the right
• Whiskey’s for drinking, water’s for fighting
• Forgetting Sarah Palin

Democrats Ask Coffman to Resign

The Colorado Democratic Party on Monday requested Secretary of State Mike Coffman, a Republican, to step down from his office because of an ongoing controversy over the decertification of voting machines and possible conflicts of interest.