Tag: gilbert ortiz

Pueblo County Clerk Gilbert Ortiz gave Colorado Secretary of State Scott Gessler until this morning to specifically and formally address another of the charged ramifications of his new interpretation of state election law. Gessler got in under the wire. Thursday evening, he sent Ortiz a letter ordering him not to send ballots to any of the county's "inactive voters"-- legally registered voters who failed to cast ballots in the previous even-year general election-- including roughly 70 soldiers on the Pueblo County inactive voter rolls serving out of state. In Pueblo as elsewhere in the state, inactive voters are now meant to visit the clerk's office or a polling place to retrieve ballots. With the election a month away, Gessler's directive seems likely to effectively disenfranchise the soldiers.

Republican Secretary of State Scott Gessler made national news this week by filing a lawsuit to stop Denver County, and by extension all Colorado counties, from mailing ballots to the state's "inactive" voters. The case drew the attention of voter-rights defender US Reps Charles Gonzalez of Texas and Robert Brady of Pennsylvania, who wrote a letter asking the justice department to investigate. The congressional letter (embedded below) is just the latest alarmed response to Gessler's lawsuit, which has featured howls from the local and national press, complaints from voter activist groups and legal push-back from Denver and Pueblo county election officials. At the eye of the storm, Gessler communications staff has been mostly hunkered down and silent on the matter, spokesperson Rich Coolidge surfacing at last today in a Texas newspaper to dismiss the congressional concerns as political gamesmanship.

Pueblo County Clerk Gilbert Ortiz is pained by the idea that his office would fail to send an election ballot to even one of county soldier serving in the US Military overseas. He sent a letter Tuesday to Secretary of State Scott Gessler seeking an express prohibition "in writing " on sending ballots to soldiers overseas who are legally registered but inactive voters.