It is a bill good-government activists were supposed to get behind enthusiastically. Then they read it. Now they now decry it as being ambiguously worded and ripe for abuse.
Over the course of a five-hour rulemaking hearing Monday, Colorado Secretary of State Scott Gessler probably got the message that a lot of people are unhappy with proposed rules that would stop county clerks from mailing ballots to inactive voters in some elections, change the way canvass boards are selected and give county clerks more power to determine how much access election watchers have.
BOULDER– Marty Neilson, Republican Party election watcher, walked out of the Boulder County Clerk’s building in disgust as workers there tabulated primary voting results the last week of June. Neilson said she couldn’t see anything of substance and felt like she was participating in a sham exercise in oversight.
Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper today signed a controversial bill that would restrict public access to government records, including ballots. Advocacy, elections and government watchdog groups across the political spectrum had called on Hickenlooper to veto the bill and have signaled their intent to file suit against the state if it should become law.
The challenges mounting on Colorado Secretary of State Scott Gessler’s desk go beyond whether to mail ballots to residents who haven’t voted in a while. He has another predicament: bar codes.
If often takes a while for things to settle down in a small town after an election. But Aspenites are taking things to extremes. They’re still arguing about their recent city election— the one they held in May.
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