The White House Project 

As Many as 6,500 Voters Risk Disenfranchisement
Call for Secretary of State to Reinstate Applications Deemed Incomplete
 

Media Advisory, Oct. 15, 2008
Contact: Jody Berger 303-748-9657

DENVER-Nonprofit organizations will gather Thursday to call on Secretary of State Mike Coffman to reinstate voters whose voter registration applications were deemed incomplete. Voters who may not get to vote and leaders of voter registration drives will speak.

As many as 6,500 Coloradoans may be disenfranchised because they filled out the application as directed on the application.

The Secretary of State's staff provided training to organizations holding voter registration drives. Those trainings did not explain that Colorado State ID's were the preferred form of identification or that voters who did not have one needed to check a box on the application before providing their Social Security number.

Thousands of Colorado citizens registered using their Social Security number as identification only to find out now that they may not be able to vote.

Where:           Colorado Secretary of State's Office
                       1700 Broadway, Denver, Colorado

When:             12 noon, Thursday, October 16, 2008

Who:               9 to 5, National Association of Working Women
                       Community Voters Project
                       Latina Initiative
                       Mi Familia Vota Civic Participation Campaign
                       New Era Colorado
                       Service Employees International Union

For more information:             Jody Berger 303-748-9657
 

 

Listen Here:

 ROSARIO DAWSON - REGISTER TO VOTE AT VOTOLATINO.ORG

 

 

 

 

 

 

 By P. SOLOMON BANDA Associated Press Writer
Article Last Updated: 09/29/2008 05:55:27 PM MDT
 
DENVER—Gov. Bill Ritter announced his opposition Monday to a ballot measure that would ban affirmative action in the awarding of state contracts, employment and admission to Colorado universities, calling it a California import that doesn't fit Colorado.

Ritter said Amendment 46 would destroy years of progress in education, health care and work force development. Supporters say affirmative action based on race and gender is no longer needed.
Amendment 46 is similar to initiatives bankrolled by former University of California regent Ward Connerly and approved by voters in California, Washington and Michigan. A similar measure is on Nebraska's ballot.
Ritter said that women earn $3 an hour less than men for equal work. African Americans earn 25 percent less than Caucasians, he said.

"In Colorado, African Americans, Latinos and American Indians make up 22 percent of all high school graduates but only 9 percent of freshmen at the University of Colorado-Boulder," he said.
"Amendment 46 undercuts Colorado and destroys years of progress in education, in health care, in work force development, all efforts that are important to Colorado's hard working families and family owned business," Ritter said.

Amendment backers cried foul when Don Elliman, director of the governor's Office of Economic Development and International Trade, acknowledged that state time was used to organize an event featuring a researcher who studied the negative effects of California's Proposition 209, which ended race and gender affirmative action in that state.

Elliman estimated that three to four hours of state time was spent on e-mails and RSVPs for the Sept. 22 event.
"It was an error both in substance and in style," Elliman said. "I wish we hadn't done it and now we have to figure out what to do to make it right."

Ritter didn't know about the development office's work, Elliman said.
Elliman said his staff told those attending the event that the state did not endorse the views of Michael Sumner, a researcher at the University of California at Berkeley who examined the negative effects of Proposition 209.
Elliman said his staff believed that disclaimer met the legal requirement against using state money to campaign for or against a ballot measure.

Colorado Civil Rights Initiative Executive Director Jessica Peck Corry, whose group supports Amendment 46, said it will pursue legal action.

"This isn't just a benign educational effort. This is a scare tactic to mislead people into believing certain consequences will happen if our initiative passes," said Corry.

State law requires all sides of an issue be presented whenever public money is used to discuss a ballot initiative.
Elliman said he would follow the advice of legal counsel on what to do next and that he wasn't considering discipline for anybody on his staff.

"If anybody is saying discipline, I hope they start with me," he said. "It's my department."

 

 

 

 

Latino Voter List Cut in Half by Inactive Voter Policy

Denver-- Voters in heavily Latino districts have relatively higher rates of participation in elections that are conducted entirely by mail, but only if election officials actually mail them a ballot, according to an analysis released today by Colorado Common Cause.

The study found that in May 2007, voter turnout in Denver’s heavily Latino precincts was only 3 percentage points lower than for the city as a whole. In comparison, the turnout for the polling place election in May 2005 was 14 percent lower in those precincts than for the whole city.

The analysis also found that Colorado’s policy of declaring voters “inactive” if they fail to vote in a general election resulted in a 50 percent decline of active registered voters in Denver’s 48 heavily Latino districts. Denver as a whole saw a 38 percent drop in its number of active voters.

“It is encouraging to see that voting by mail is working well for Latino voters,” said Jenny Flanagan, executive director of Colorado Common Cause. “Unfortunately, Colorado’s policy of branding properly registered voters as “inactive” after they miss a single election means that tens of thousands of voters are being excluded from the process. We should be encouraging voters to participate, not making it more difficult.”

Dusti Gurule of the Latina Initiative called on elections officials to change the policy of only mailing ballots to voters who have participated in the most recent general elections. “This policy means that groups who have historically lower rates of voter participation will only slip further behind. The Latina Initiative works to ensure all eligible voters are included in all aspects of the voting process and the fact that we are in essence blacklisting someone who has missed an election which excludes them from the normal balloting process is simply wrongheaded.”

All Colorado voters can check their registration status with their county clerk’s office. If a voter is marked inactive, they can re activate their status with their county office. Because many Colorado counties will be voting by mail this November, voters should be aware that an inactive status will cause them to not receive a ballot.

“These findings demonstrate that Colorado officials must re-examine current practices for declaring voters inactive, especially in all-mail elections where inactive status takes the ballot out of the hands of properly registered voters,” concluded Flanagan.

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