Gessler history of fighting unpaid election fines hovers over proposed rule changes

Colorado Secretary of State Scott Gessler, according to the Denver Post, will be proposing a new set of rules that would waive or reduce a significant number of campaign finance fines for political committees that fail to file disclosure reports. As an elections law attorney for primarily conservative causes, Gessler represented groups that either flat-out failed to register with the secretary of state and later engaged in electioneering activity or failed to file disclosure reports – sometimes for years. Now he tells the Post he’ll roll out rules in the next few weeks that will make it easier to reduce or waive such fines.

Estes Park voters say election was just the beginning

What now, America?

When The New York Times posed that question in Estes Park a few days ago, the answers they got indicated that just maybe the body politic has warmed to the game.

In the passage below,…

Gardner trying mightily to tie Markey to Obama on job losses

Employment numbers are down in the 4th Congressional District, but not as far down as the rest of the state or the country, according to Coloradoan Editor Bob Moore.

Analyzing the jobs report for 2009, Moore predicted with job…

Romanoff: Blustery Wednesday morning but all business Tuesday night

This morning Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Andrew Romanoff gave a hard-driving press conference, making the case that grassroots voters had spoken when they handed him a victory in the caucus voting Tuesday night. Huddling with hipster-staffers as the vote…

Lucero, local Republicans survey Larimer’s shifting political landscape

Conservative Republican and CD 4 hopeful Tom Lucero hosted a campaign breakfast Tuesday in Loveland at a strip-mall cafe and ended up talking to eight likable, earnest people there about the need to affect major cultural change if they were ever going to restore a sense of personal responsibility in the United States and succeed in abolishing income taxes and the Internal Revenue Service.

“We have to replicate Obama’s Chicago-style politics, Saul Alinsky’s ‘Rules for Radicals,’ if we’re going to beat the [Democrats],” he told the small group of almost-all retirees. They nodded in agreement but said nothing.

Lucero faces a tough slog between now and Election Day 2010, and he knows it.

Denver allows “check box” voters to fix registrations, Coffman denounces action

Denver County Clerk and Recorder Stephanie O’Malley has defied Secretary of State Mike Coffman by devising a plan to let some voters with incomplete registrations fix their forms and vote regular ballots on Election Day.

Attorney General supports Secretary of State on “check box” registrations

Attorney General John Suthers weighed in on Colorado’s contentious voter registration issue yesterday, saying that Secretary of State Mike Coffman was correct in ordering counties to reject incomplete registration forms with the so-called “check box” problem, according to the Denver Post.

Colorado election snafu roundup: Clerks resort to robocalls to fix bad registrations

The clock is ticking down until Colorado’s big day. And with the John McCain campaign all but pulling out of the state as Barack Obama pushes forward, the result of the November election in Colorado may be coming into focus.

Unfortunately, when it comes to election administration in Colorado, things are getting muddier and muddier by the day. In our election bungle roundup last week, we guided you through the week’s most important news: national groups slamming Secretary of State Mike Coffman on his voter registration policy, Attorney General John Suthers backing Coffman in his recent voter purge, El Paso County Clerk and Recorder Bob Balink further disenfranchising student voters, and more. Read on to for the latest foul-ups:

Counties get creative on ‘check box’ flaw on voter registration applications

With Colorado Secretary of State Mike Coffman unwilling to budge on incomplete voter registrations, several counties across the state have come up with partial resolutions on their own.

The ever-evolving “check box” drama has to do with the state’s new voter registration form. Applicants without a state ID or a driver’s license must indicate as much by checking a box and then giving the last four digits of their social security numbers. But at least 6,700 new would-be voters–and as many as 10,000 by one estimate — neglected to check the box. Several thousand of these individuals have since cured their applications, but many more remain barred from voter rolls.

Larimer County: Another GOP stronghold moves leftward

Home to the state’s only agricultural university, Rocky Mountain National Park and many ranches, Larimer County has traditionally been a Republican stronghold in Colorado. But, as President George W. Bush’s approval ratings play gutterball, the unpopular war in Iraq continues and the economy continues to rock and roll, Larimer County’s electorate is starting to swing in a moderate direction with upticks in the number of Democrat and unaffiliated voters. That shift is being eyed by strategists and politicos carefully this year as the northern Colorado county could be one of a handful to play a pivotal role in the November election.