October 07, 2011 09:32 PM UTC

Veterans Group Condemns El Paso County "Inactive" Ballot Policy

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• by: Colorado Pols

Excerpt from a press release from VoteVets.org a short while ago, opening a new front in the battle over mailing ballots to registered voters in Colorado marked “inactive” due to failure to vote in 2010–against a county clerk not involved in litigation, for withholding ballots from “inactive” military voters. As you know, that’s the status quo in most Colorado counties this year:

VETERANS SLAM EL PASO COUNTY CLERK’S DECISION ON BALLOT ACCESS FOR MILITARY MEMBERS

Colorado Springs, CO – A veterans group is today strongly condemning El Paso County Clerk Wayne Williams’ decision to not send nearly 1000 election ballots to military members, despite the fact that his county has one of the highest military populations in the country.

Williams has held steadfast in his decision.  The Denver District court is hearing a case that could very well strike down a recent order from the Secretary of State to not send ballots to many registered voters. Yet, Williams has shown no willingness to change his mind on who receives ballots, no matter what the court decides.  Recently, he told The Pueblo Chieftain that sending ballots wasn’t “cost effective,” because some ballots in the past have not been used by those who received them.

“It’s not Wayne Williams’ job to estimate which members of our military will or will not likely vote in the upcoming election,” said Richard Allen Smith, Vice Chairman of VoteVets.org, and an Afghanistan Veteran and Denver resident.  “It’s his job to ensure our troops are given every opportunity to vote.  His choice to not send ballots to hundreds of our troops, legally registered to vote in his county, is outrageous.  Clerk Williams likes to site the cost of sending out ballots to our troops as a reason to not send them.  Those of us who served in war would like to remind him that we’ve paid a much higher cost to protect that right to vote.”

El Paso Clerk Wayne Williams has been a reliable defender of Secretary of State Scott Gessler over more than this issue–you’ll recall that Gessler turned to Williams for backup after his push to “examine” the voter rolls for an unknown and dubious number of “illegal” voters met with pushback in the legislature. Williams told the Pueblo Chieftain recently that the rate of return for ballots in El Paso County mailed to “inactive” voters was very low, on the order of “1 in 1000”–a figure dismissed as absurdly, probably mendaciously low by just about everyone we’ve talked to.

So Williams can now share in Gessler’s soldier vote suppression glory! The shock value makes you famous, but we wouldn’t recommend this to politicians with, you know, career aspirations.

There seems to be some squeamishness about asking the next logical question here, folks. There are 64 counties in the state of Colorado, most of which are conducting all-mail elections this year, and only two of which are party (or seeking to be) to the litigation from Gessler. Who will be the next county clerk to defend denial of ballots to “inactive-failed to vote” voters?

How many soldiers in your county?