The electronic voting machine certifications done by Republican Secretary of State for Colorado, Gigi Dennis, violated state law, but the machines can be used anyway, because there is no viable alternative, a state judge ruled today. The judge found that there was not time to implement a paper ballot alternative.According to the Denver Post
Six Colorado counties – Adams, Arapahoe, Denver, Douglas, Mesa and Weld – plan to vote exclusively on electronic machines in this election.
The six counties represent about half of the state’s registered voters, or 1 million people, said Holly Lowder, state elections director.
The news is a moral and rhetorical victory for voting machine opponents, but makes no substantive change, and leaves a cloud hanging over the election’s results in November, no matter who wins. With early voting starting on October 23, there is little time for an appeal, and the longer any appeal takes, that harder it is for a paper ballot remedy to be viable.
