October 11, 2011 09:40 PM UTC

More Counties Thumb Nose At Gessler

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• by: Colorado Pols

UPDATE: Add Conejos, but more importantly Eagle County to the list–just in from sources.

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As the Pueblo Chieftain’s Peter Roper reports:

Boulder and Pitkin counties have reversed course and will send election ballots to inactive voters this month, the Colorado Secretary of State Scott Gessler’s office confirmed Monday.

That turnaround comes only two days after a Denver district judge refused to block Denver and Pueblo counties from doing so.

Boulder will send ballots to about 24,000 inactive voters, while Pitkin will send out about 2,500 ballots.

Mesa County officials also notified Gessler on Monday that they will send ballots to their inactive military and overseas voters only, but not to inactive voters within their county…

[The judge’s] decision tossed into the air Gessler’s earlier advisory to the 58 other counties conducting mail ballots elections in November not to send ballots to inactive voters.  Following Whitney’s ruling, Gessler said that any county intending to join with Denver and Pueblo counties in sending ballots to inactive voters must notify his office Monday – despite the Columbus Day holiday. [Pols emphasis]

Considering that many Colorado counties (but not all) were closed for business yesterday, we think it will be awfully hard for Gessler to enforce that order. And it might not matter: we’ve just learned that Costilla and Huerfano counties will deliver to inactives in addition to Pueblo, Boulder and Pitkin–even though the Chieftain reported that only those three counties’ revised plans, and Mesa County’s delivery to deployed military voters, made it to Gessler’s office by his “deadline.” It seems to us that at a certain level, Gessler doesn’t have control over the U.S. Mail–and isn’t going to win a fight to throw out valid votes that result from ballots mailed to inactives.

Is this what happens when you overstep your authority one too many times?