October 30, 2008 05:45 PM UTC

Denver addresses "Check box" issue

• 1 Comments
• by: Dan Willis

The following press release came out yesterday regarding how Denver is going to try to assist those who have inadvertently fallen into “Checkbox Hell”

Denver Offers “Checkbox” Voters an Election Day Solution

These “incomplete” voters to have an opportunity to vote a regular Election Day ballot

(Denver) – The Denver Elections Division announced today that it was taking extraordinary measures this week and on Election Day to provide Denver residents whose voter registration applications have deemed to be incomplete with an opportunity to cure the problem so that the voters in question will be able to vote a regular ballot on Election Day.

Today, the Division will send out 1,400 letters to those applicants with the deficiency.  This letter will instruct voters on where to go to cure the problem and to cast a ballot on Election Day.  In addition, it will provide a separate list of those voters whose registrations were marked as incomplete because of the applicant’s failure to check a box in the identification section of their voter registration application.

Voters on this list will be given the opportunity to complete their registration properly and then be issued a regular ballot. Without this solution, these voters would not have been informed which location to vote at and would also have had to vote a provisional ballot.

4,200 Denver voter registration forms were deemed incomplete since the voters did not check the box stating that they didn’t have a Colorado Driver’s License or a Colorado Department of Revenue ID Card, even though they did provide the last 4 digits of their Social Security number.

“After consulting with the Denver City Attorney’s Office it was determined that we would be within the law in having a voter cure this problem at their polling place on Election Day,” Denver Clerk and Recorder Stephanie O’Malley said. “In September, we made several appeals to the

Colorado Secretary of State to reconsider his ruling that a voter’s registration is incomplete due to their failure to check an ID box. We feel 1,400-plus voters should not be denied an Election Day ballot due to what is essentially a voter’s technical error.”

The Denver Elections Division has made efforts to contact these 4,200 people to help them complete their registrations prior to Election Day, including sending them a letter with instructions on completing their registrations and also placing robo-calls to the applicants. 2,800 voters have been able to cure their registrations. At this date, there are still 1,400 voters who have not completed their registrations.

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Denver Elections Division Fact Sheet

For Checkbox News Release

October 29, 2008

In the summer of 2008, Denver election officials noticed that there seemed to be a high number of incomplete registrations due to the voters not checking a box.

On September 16, 2008 Denver election officials asked the Secretary of State’s office for a clarification of the rule regarding the ID checkbox.

Denver elections officials were advised on September 17 to treat the applications as incomplete.

The issue was discussed with the Secretary of State’s office again on September 22.

Secretary Coffman visited the Election Division on September 26 and the ID checkbox issue was discussed during that meeting. The following week, the Secretary of State ruled that the applications should be treated as incomplete.

Denver elections officials then requested that the affected voters be placed in the poll book in ID Verify status and that request was denied on October 16.