( – promoted by ProgressiveCowgirl)
[Major Update]: As I was contemplating this in the solitude of a car drive in the mountains, I realized that FOX might have buried the lede on this story, and that I followed right along…
Did Sec. Gessler induce citizens to unregister as voters? This story was based around the 3903 letters sent out to “potentially illegally registered voters”, of which we Colorado Pols readers know that Gessler claims 141 responses were sent back asking to be voluntarily unregistered. This story mentions that of those 141 responses, 35 voted in past elections, and that the Denver Clerk’s office found that all eight of those voters registered in Denver were citizens.
The FOX story doesn’t note this fact – perhaps because they aren’t sure of the significance of those 141 people. But my read of this is that Secretary of State Gessler through his very well documented actions caused citizens through perhaps misleading or intimidating means to unregister themselves as voters. That could be a Federal no-no.
Surfaced at Google News, from FOX News:
Election Officials Who Vowed War On Voter Fraud Find Little Proof Of It:
Last year, Gessler estimated that 11,805 noncitizens were on the rolls.
But the number kept getting smaller.
After his office sent letters to 3,903 registered voters questioning their status, the number of noncitizens now stands at 141, based on checks using a federal immigration database. Of those 141, Gessler said 35 have voted in the past. The 141 are .004 percent of the state’s nearly 3.5 million voters.
Even those numbers could be fewer.
The Denver clerk and recorder’s office, which had records on eight of the 35 voters who cast ballots in the past, did its own verification and found that those eight people appear to be citizens.
The folks here at Colorado Pols will, of course, find this as no surprise at all. Secretary of State Gessler’s manufactured crisis, about which he testified in front of Congress, turns out to be nothing but vapor.
Which of course begs the question of Scott Gessler…
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Lost: precious taxpayer resources and trust in our Secretary of State’s office.
also have been lost in several counties. Boulder had to look at over 300-staff time. Boulder county has used their county atty-that costs $. Now we see Denver using staff time. How many counties have had to pay to confer with their county atty?
should send Mr. Gessler the bills to cover the costs for their budgetary headaches. He won’t pay, but at least we might know what all of this nonsense cost us.
… that this waste WILL have the positive benefit of laying this bullshit to bed permanently – at least in Colorado. Perhaps it can be help spread the word nationally.
That won’t bring back the wasted resources, of course. And I’m probably being naive in my hope. Lord knows what shenanigans Tipton will pull if the election is extremely close here.
I plan on calling the Denver Clerk’s office in the morning to see if this means what I really think it means.
If Gessler’s office received requests from these 8 voters to remove themselves from the registration rolls, and forwarded those requests on to Denver (or actually removed the voters from the rolls), then at least technically I believe he’s in violation of Federal election law of the “several years in prison” variety.
and not until later in the day. No response back so far. I’ll post an update as I get info.
The Colorado Unfair Campaign Finance Act and HB 1326 aloing with slugs like Grueskin, causes far more intimidation than Gesslers innocuous actions.
Love that Citizens United, eh?
They’re both about money – the CFA for campaign finances, and HB 1326 for petitions.
Neither has potentially disenfranchised citizens.
…recall his his ass six months ago.
As I remember, there was some time constraint involving how long he had been in office…wasn’t it?
If PR is right…maybe he will be in jail ‘ere long.
While his actions are descipable, it would be a big mountain for any prosecutor to climb for a conviction.