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Voter Registration Fraud in Colorado

By Jeralyn, Section Elections
Posted on Tue Oct 12, 2004 at 07:00:20 PM EST
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Colorado's voter registration problems seem to be getting a lot of media attention--probably because it's a swing state this year. In any event, officials say problems are being blown out of proportion.

A few days ago it was disclosed that up to 6,000 felons are among the registered voters. Their names had not been checked to see if they were eligible to vote. In Colorado,

Felons cannot vote if they are in prison or on parole, but felons on probation can vote....Worried about possible lawsuits challenging her rules, [Secretary of State] Davidson said she won't just purge the rolls of felons but will allow people who show up and might be flagged as felons to vote with a provisional ballot.

Their names will be checked after the election. If they are eligible to vote, their votes will count.

Next issue: Registration drive workers were paid by the number of people they registered to vote.

Kym Cason said that she registered 25 times and registered several of her friends 40 times to help her boyfriend, who earned $2 for each voter he registered for the Association of Community Organizations.

Several thousand registration applications likely will be thrown out because some people who filled them out already were registered but may have forgotten. A small percentage will be sent to the secretary of state's office for investigation and possible prosecution by the attorney general.

The Rocky Mountain News reports:

Bill Compton, of the secretary of state's office, said that so far, several hundred questionable voter-application records have been turned over to the attorney general's office. That number may reach into the low thousands, he said, but it's hard to tell just how many are a problem because some county clerks are turning cases over to local district attorneys.

There's also the problem of people who timely registered during a vote drive but whose names either weren't turned over by the voter registration deadline of October 4, or werent' turned in at all.

[Secretary of State] Davidson said she would offer those people who were under the impression they had registered during a drive - even though they don't turn up on voter rolls - a provisional ballot so they aren't disenfranchised, even after the Oct. 4 deadline. If a lawsuit is filed, Davidson said, judges also usually side with voters.

The main problem seems to be with the amount of time it will take the clerks to check and hand count the provisional ballots. It seems to us that providing provisional ballots is a far better solution than blocking people from voting.

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