XOOPS Site - SmartSection

Election Reform Organizations in Colorado

CAMBER
Active in poll watching.

Citizens for Verifiable Voting
"This site is a collaborative resource for people in Colorado who want confidence in the election process
and are concerned about security issues with many new and existing voting systems.
While CVV has an active discussion list, as an organization, CVV is inactive."

Coloradoans for Voting Integrity
Website in progress.

Critical Races to Watch

(D) Democrat (R) Republican
(G) Green (IN) Independent
(L) Libertarian (I) Incumbent

House

CO3	John Salazar (D)(I)	Scott Tipton (R)	Bert Sargent (L)
CO7	Edwin Perlmutter (D)	Rick O'Donnell (R)	Roger McCarville
CO7	Dave Chandler (G)	John Heckman	Steve Moore
CO7	John Sexton

Governor

Bill Ritter (D)	Bob Beauprez (R)	Paul Fiorino (IN)
Clyde Harkins	Dawn Winkler-Kinateder (L)	Gary Cooper
Darla Herold	Chuck Sylvester

Secretary of State

Ken Gordon (D)

Mike Coffman (R)

Colorado voters will head to the polls in November with the lowest level of confidence in recent memory, experts say, after a judge condemned the methods used to certify electronic voting machines across the state. Voters across the state who cast ballots on electronic voting machines will rest their choices for local, gubernatorial and congressional races on new technology that has not been properly certified. Distrust of the machines is so high that some Colorado counties stand ready to help voters cast their ballots by mail to alleviate concerns about potential tampering or other problems with computerized voting machines.

The doubts about the reliability of the machines essentially gives any candidate who loses a tightly contested race a reasonable argument for a court challenge, experts say.

In a legal victory on 9/22/06 in the Colorado voters' lawsuit challenging Secretary of State's Gigi Dennis' cursory certification of electronic voting systems manufactured by Diebold, Sequoia, ES&S, and Hart Intercivic, the District Court in Denver decided that it will not permit the use of these systems post November 7th until real security standards are adopted and the machines are retested to meet these standards. Secretary of State Gigi Dennis' office never created minimum security standards for the machines - as required by state law, Denver District Judge Lawrence Manzanares said. And he said the state did an "abysmal" job of documenting testing during the certification process.

The lawsuit was filed on June 1st by a diverse group of Colorado voters, among them Democrat, Republican, Independent, and Green Party members, as well as disabled voters. The plaintiffs’ pro bono law firm of Wheeler Trigg Kennedy noted in a press release that the machines “are easily hacked and compromised, and have a history of operational problems which have disrupted elections across the country”. full lawsuit pdf

In preparation for the trial of the lawsuit, a deposition was taken from John Gardner - the man appointed by Gigi Dennis as an expert and charged with certifying the machines. Gardner testified he is not an expert in the areas required by state law. He also admitted that the Secretary of State's office was under pressure to certify the voting machines because counties had already purchased them.

For the November 2006 election, Judge Lawrence Manzanares also ordered the Secretary of State to adopt state-wide security standards to compensate for possible vulnerabilities of the electronic machines, and ensure compliance from all Colorado counties using the machines.

The new, detailed security rules, announced 9/27/06 by Secretary of State Gigi Dennis, call for steps such as video surveillance of machine storage areas and background checks on those transporting the election equipment. In 11 pages of small text, state officials set out a long list of security requirements, including limits on how many employees can enter election work areas and how often computer passwords are to be changed. "The length and complexity of the rules demonstrates how badly the system is broken," said Paul Hultin, an attorney for the 13 citizen plaintiffs in the voting-machine lawsuit.

Call to Action!!!!!
Provisional Ballots
Introduced by federal law in 2002 as part of the Help America Vote Act (HAVA), the provisional ballot was designed for voters whose registration was in question. Initially proposed by the Congressional Black Caucus, it was to save the rights of those wrongly purged from voter rolls.

HAVA provisional ballot law allows election officials to give provisional ballots to any persons who:

show up at the polls on Election Day but find that, for whatever reason, their names are not on the voter rolls; or
have their right to vote challenged by an election official. (Note: In many locations it’s not just election officials, but also partisan observers who challenge voters).

Unlike regular ballots, provisional ballots are not required under HAVA to be counted. Rather, the decision whether or not to count provisional ballots is determined by the 50 individual Secretaries of State. Across the nation, large numbers of provisional ballots have been systematically rejected. During the 2004 election, a total of 3,107,490 voters were moved into provisional ballots. The number of ballots rejected was a stunning 1,090,729.

ACTION: Check with www.CanIVote.org to see if you are registered. They also need to ensure their ID matches the voter registration name exactly. Voters can be challenged over minor things, such as a middle initial on their ID while the voter roll has a full middle name listed. Next, check to be sure your polling place has not moved.

New Voter Identification Laws
Many states have passed laws that require citizens to provide a photo identification piece proving that they are indeed citizens. A driver’s license and a birth certificate are inadequate because the former doesn’t prove citizenship and the latter doesn’t provide a photo. A passport does qualify. As the state supreme courts review these new laws, many have already been struck down as unconstitutional because they are barriers to voting.

ACTION: All citizens should check with their Elections office to ensure what the current requirements are. If a photo ID is required, a protest should be lodged as to the unconstitutionality of the law.

Join the Transparency Project
http://www.verifiedvotingfoundation.org/article.php?id=6389

Colorado Election News

Vote-security goals called unachievable

9/29/06
County clerks in rural Colorado don't know how they'll meet the secretary of state's strict new rules. More...

Do electronic voting machines work?

9/28/06
EAGLE COUNTY — When Harvie Branscomb and Teak Simonton look at the county’s new voting machines, each sees something different.

Simonton, the Eagle County Clerk and Recorder, looks at the machines and sees a secure, proven way for voters to cast ballots.

Branscomb, boss of a software company and chairman of the Eagle County Democratic Party, sees a system he doesn’t trust, and one that could possibly lead to votes not being counted, or being counted improperly. More...

Security added for voting

Video surveillance of machines, background checks on movers included. The new rules by the secretary of state come in response to a lawsuit claiming electronic ballots are open to error and fraud. More...

Glitches take toll
Election commission to mothball part of new voting system

9/26/06
Denver's election commission has decided to mothball part of its controversial new voting system because of troubles that surfaced during August's primary. The 50 card activators slated to be decommissioned - at least for the November election - came from Chicago, which sold them at a discount to Denver after a problem- plagued election there in March. Denver paid $35,000 for the activators after Chicago began updating its voting system, said Alton Dillard, election commission spokesman. They are used in the city's 240 new Sequoia Voting Systems machines. The election commission conceded that a significant number of problems surfaced in August - mainly with voters being given the wrong ballots. More...

Officials urge Coloradans to vote by absentee ballot

9/26/06
Some Colorado counties stand ready to help voters cast their ballots by mail to alleviate concerns about potential tampering or other problems with computerized voting machines. In fact, Denver and Arapahoe counties are urging citizens to vote absentee with mailed paper ballots, simply because November's ballot is so long. A Denver judge ruled Friday that the computerized machines had not been tested sufficiently for security vulnerabilities. More...

Residents mixed on voting machines
State must present security rules today

9/25/06
Voters across Colorado will be using electronic voting machines in the Nov. 7 election, but not everyone is confident in the security of these machines. In response to a lawsuit filed by 13 voters to ban the use of the electronic touch-screen voting machines, Denver District Court Judge Lawrence Manzanares ruled Friday it would cause more problems to not use the machines in the elections but blasted the state for failing to come up with minimum security standards. More...

Vote ruling dims mood

9/23/06
A judge's "nuanced" decision allows electronic ballots Nov. 7 but then requires recertification. Officials say everything's secure. Coloradans will head to polls in November with the lowest level of confidence in recent memory, experts say, after a judge condemned the methods used to certify electronic voting machines across the state. Secretary of State Gigi Dennis' office never created minimum security standards for the machines - as required by state law, Denver District Judge Lawrence Manzanares said Friday. And he said the state did an "abysmal" job of documenting testing during the certification process. So voters across the state who cast ballots on electronic voting machines will rest their choices for local, gubernatorial and congressional races on new technology that has not been properly certified. The doubts about the reliability of the machines essentially gives any candidate who loses a tightly contested race a reasonable argument for a court challenge, experts say. More...

For a daily update of election news in Colorado go to this link. Click on the date, and then scroll down to Colorado (news articles listed alphabetically by state).