( – promoted by Colorado Pols)
Gordon’s bill stipulates that county clerks will buy supplies and pay for printing the ballots. For all other expenses associated with the elections, the Department of State “may reimburse a county for conducting primary and general elections in 2008” with funds appropriated by the Legislature or from HAVA.
The county clerk, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the bill has not yet been introduced, said some aspects of the bill’s funding language were troubling – particularly the portion stating the Department of State “may reimburse a county for conducting primary and general elections in 2008.” The clerk was disturbed that it does not expressly guarantee that General Fund money would pay all county expenses. Further, there’s a significant change in the most recent draft on the bill, finalized Monday, as compared to a previous draft from Feb. 13. The previous version appropriated $4 million in General Fund money to pay for election costs. The new draft leaves that portion of the bill blank.
David Archer, a legislative analyst for the Senate majority office who helped write the bill, would not comment on the change.
The county clerk who was interviewed, however, said that about $10 million would actually be needed for the statewide switch to paper-ballot voting. The clerk speculated, though, that the $4 million appropriated in the previous draft of the bill would go down rather than up when the bill is finalized
“I would say it’s going the other way, not more towards more money,” the clerk said.
This is a big expense to shove down the counties throat on short notice.
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Well, ok they aren’t, but at least the profits go to the right class of people.
Has anyone looked at how efficiently the clerks run the elections and are all their expenses legit? This has always struck me as set up so there is no challanging the costs because it must be perfect.
It is just like when every group or elected claims Colorado is 49th in funding for whatever they are asking $$$ for like Education, Healthcare, Ice Cream for kids, whatever.
I don’t know why they don’t just claim Colorado is 51st heck if your going to exaggerate go BIG!!!
I’ve seen them, know where they came from and trust the source (who was a successful businessman prior to being elected). Of course, I’m an anonymous poster who’s asking you to take his word for it. Not sure how much street cred that gives me 🙂
Even if the numbers were inflated, one need only look at history to answer Danny’s question. The federal government and the state mandated counties purchase machines and then shirked the majority of the bill.
Gordon’s bill will pass the majority of the costs to the counties and there isn’t any reason to believe history won’t repeat itself.
Listen, politics under the dome have dictated how CO will run the ’08 election. Poor policy coming from power politics and now politicians are trying to back up their hasty words with this bill.
Not a very good way to instill voter confidence or run an election.
If the Gov and Gordon wanted to instill voter confidence they should not have chosen to use Denver’s model for a statewide election.
90% of the counties wanted an all mail election they (Ritter & Gordan) should have listened to the Clerks on this.
Oh well as they say in DC….they are from Denver and they are here to help