October 02, 2008 05:59 AM UTC

SoS Disenfranchises Thousands of Young Voters

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• by: Dan Willis

( – promoted by Colorado Pols)

Thought you registered to vote?

Think again!

The SoS is suppressing thousands of new voter registrations!

Details “below the fold”

At Issue: Forms used by Voter Registration Drives. They include a place for people to include their Driver’s License Number, State ID Card Number or Social Security Number (only requires last 4 digits). There is a box present which states “I do not have a Colorado Driver’s license or Dept. of Revenue identification number” which people are supposed to mark if they are going to only give an SSN.

The Secretary of State has included in his Rules (dated July 2008) that any new voter who does not mark that box and only gives their SSN shall not be registered to vote.  In mid-September he issued a memo to the County Clerks telling them specifically to not register anyone who does this.

Consequence: Thousands of new voters are attempting to register to vote, thinking they are successful because they signed up through some organization such as ACORN or any of the political parties, but are not registered and will not be allowed to vote if they do not correct their forms.

When I say thousands, I am not over-exaggerating. In Denver County alone (the only one I have numbers for so far) this ruling has resulting in approx. 3000 denied voter registrations! And that is just one county, and one with thousands of more forms to even look at!

The SoS’s sorry excuse? They claim to upholding the law, specifically CRS 1-2-204(f.5) which states:

“In the case of an elector who has been issued a current and valid Colorado driver’s license, the elector’s Colorado driver’s license number. If, instead of a driver’s license, the elector has been issued a current and valid identification card by the department of revenue in accordance with part 3 of article 2 of title 42, C.R.S., the elector shall provide the number of the identification card. If the elector has not been issued a current and valid Colorado driver’s license or identification card, the elector shall answer that he or she does not have a driver’s license or identification card and shall provide the last four digits of the elector’s social security number. If the elector does not have a social security number, the elector shall answer that he or she does not have a social security number.”

There are several problems with this logic:

1. There are several voter registration forms out there generally available to the public that do not include the check box, so therefore do not carry the opportunity for the form to be rejected for not marking it.

2. The Voter registration form that does have the check box (and was conveniently designed by the SoS’s Office) does not clearly state that you are REQUIRED to mark the box for the registration to be processed. The wording of the very small printed and lengthy paragraph makes it sound like if you leave the ID area totally blank you are in for problems, but not if you provide the SSN. This form is the only form Voter Registration Drives are allowed to use.

3. In Colorado, ANYONE who votes must show ID to do so. So before a ballot is cast, an ID will be presented. People who vote by mail and have not already provided an ID are required to return a copy of their ID with their ballot. This rule is therefore accomplishing nothing useful.

What is really going on? From all the information available to me, I can only come to one conclusion: The Secretary of State is purposely suppressing voter participation in Colorado. Why? Well let’s see:

Who are conducting the very large voter registration drives? The Democratic Party, the Obama Campaign, ACORN and other Dem-friendly organizations.

Who are being affected the most by this rule? Young people (typically 18-22 year-olds) who are overwhelming polling for Obama.

Final thought: in Colorado in 2000, there was a 45,521 vote difference between Gore and Bush. 2008 is expected to be a lot closer, maybe even THE deciding state. Just think of the impact of denying votes to 10,000 or more young, predominantly Obama-supporting, voters in a major battleground state.

In 2000 it was Florida; in 2004 it was Ohio; is 2008 our turn to hang our heads in shame over our conduct of a presidential election?