April 22, 2010 04:21 PM UTC

Partisan Howling Kills Election Reform Bill

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• by: Colorado Pols

The Grand Junction Sentinel’s Charles Ashby reports:

Politics and fear caused Colorado House Speaker Terrance Carroll to nix introducing an election-reform measure this session, the Denver Democrat said Wednesday.

Carroll said an idea to extend voter registrations closer to Election Day and other reforms that drew sharp criticism from Republicans was enough to kill the idea before it got off the ground.

“I’m disappointed that some were misinformed by political spin and half truths,” Carroll said. “Motivated by fear of new voters, a few partisans blocked this effort at every turn.”

The speaker said some county clerks raised legitimate concerns about a draft of the proposal, but the entire effort began because of concerns raised by other clerks. Still, he said, their concerns and a lack of bipartisan support for the measure meant it would be impossible to reach a consensus…

Secretary of State Bernie Buescher, a Democrat who was working with the clerks and Carroll on the proposal, said he would continue talks over possible reforms for future legislators to consider.

Buescher said trying to address the matter during an election year that clerks are busy preparing for wasn’t the best time.

Still, he said, a “vast majority” of clerks agreed the state should “remove outdated barriers” that prevent voters from updating their registrations.

As we said earlier, it’s widely believed that Colorado GOP chairman Dick Wadhams was the man personally marshaling county clerks in opposition to the bill, inventing pejorative terms like the “ACORN Enabling Act” to describe it. Much worse, though, were the efforts by GOP Secretary of State candidate Scott “Fox for Henhouse Secretary” Gessler to campaign on the bill, whose paranoid claims would have made Glenn Beck blush–Gessler actually told supporters in a fundraising email that this bill would allow anyone to vote twice, that it would result in “busloads” of fraudulent voters, that you can “say goodbye” to voting at a polling place or vote center, and all kinds of other assertions either completely false or twisted beyond recognition.

But it would seem to have worked…