Unintended Consequences?
Interest was high last week in our report on the Kobach commission and the public reaction to it. This week, The Colorado Independent has an update:
Hundreds more voters in Colorado took themselves off the rolls following news that a presidential commission set up by Donald Trump asked states for its voters’ personal information.
The latest figures from the Secretary of State’s office — as of July 14 — show 3,738 voters cast off their franchise. The state has slightly more than 3.7 million registered voters. Looking at the party breakdown, far more Democrats than Republicans un-registered — to the tune of 2,037 to 367. As for unaffiliated voters, 1,255 un-registered to vote.
As of July 13, the total number of unregistered voters since June 29 was 3,394. Until today, the party breakdown was unknown.
Democrats and Unaffiliated voters need to think again!
With so many people cancelling their voter registration because of the Kobach commission. what are the odds that some of those voters will forget to re-register before the election? How many will fool themselves into thinking that it’s too late, or too unsafe, to vote. Given the proportions of people who de-registered, what are the odds that the commission will have thereby succeeded in reducing the number of Democratic votes?
Don’t be one of these Trump enablers. Colorado may have the safest, most secure, and yet most voter-friendly ballot management system of any state in the nation. This Weathervane reporter has been an Election Judge and an eye-witness to the fairness, security, anonymity, and integrity of ballot processing in Colorado. Trust us on this one. Learn these two lessons.
Lesson 1: It’s never too late to register and vote.
OK. If it’s 7pm on Election Day and you are not in line at the polling place, it’s too late to register and vote. Any time earlier than that, you can still do it. Here’s what you need to know.
Registering and Voting
Closer to the election, your county government will distribute the information below. This is the process that has been in place in Colorado since 2013, when the all-mail ballot process was first used.
If you’ve voted in every election since 2013, you’re probably good and can skip this next part, which is dull. But if you haven’t been voting, or haven’t been voting in off-year elections, WTF SAYS READ THIS NOW. Because you are voting in the NEXT election, and the election after THAT! We are saving democracy here! Get serious!
Every registered voter in Colorado has a ballot mailed to the address specified at registration. Voters may update their address on-line, but ballots are not forwarded if the registration address does not match the postal service database.
Every voter is required to provide a signature and acceptable identification once. If a voter has registered on-line and not provided acceptable identification, a facsimile may be mailed in with the first ballot the voter returns. Here again, Colorado law is some of the most liberal in the nation. It rarely can be said to create barriers to registering or voting.
A voter who does not receive a mail ballot because they have moved may update their mailing address on-line, or by going in person to a Voter Services Polling Center (VSPC) or the county courthouse. At a VSPC, a new mail-in ballot for their correct location may be printed and taken home, or the voter may receive an in-person ballot and vote the ballot on-site at the VSPC.
If you lose or ruin your mail ballot, you can still vote by going to a VSPC and asking for a new one. The last ballot issued is the only one that will count. However, if you voted successfully and the State has validated it, that ballot will count and you cannot vote again.
Voters who wait too long to mail their ballots in or who don’t want to entrust their ballot to the US Postal Service may hand-carry their ballots either to a drop-off lockbox in every county, or to a VSPC. It is hard to imagine how the balloting process could be more flexible or secure.
Lesson 2: Nobody can know how you voted.
You now know how to be sure to get a ballot and how to be sure the county elections department receives it. But what do they do with it? It’s a long story.
The county has your back when it comes to making your vote count. Your ballot arrives in a white (or purple) envelope that identifies you. If you forgot to sign the envelope or if there’s a question whether it matches the signature on file, the county will contact you. They will hold the envelope unopened until you show up to prove you are you and affirm that the signature is yours. More detail about that is here (but it’s really dry).
A purple envelope means that you must include acceptable ID (a photocopy is OK) inside the purple envelope along with your ballot in its security sleeve. Purple envelopes are opened in the presence of a bi-partisan (one Republican, one Democrat, today) team of specially trained election judges. They verify that the included ID completes the voter’s registration, update the voter registration computer system, and put the ballot, still in its security sleeve, into a bin for the next processing step.
Whenever opened ballots in their security sleeves are moved, they are moved by a bipartisan team of election judges. Every collection of ballots at rest sits in a locked area which can only be accessed by such a bipartisan team. At no point in the life cycle of your ballot can a partisan person tamper with it, and there’s no point where markings of the ballot can be viewed by a partisan person. Ballots are not removed from their security sleeves until they are separated from their envelopes. The ballot does not contain any information that identifies the voter.
Ballots stay in their security sleeves until Election Day, when they are unsleeved and actually counted. Before that, any estimates on turnout or predictions of the election’s outcome are based only on the declared party affiliation of the voter. Keep that in mind, and don’t let those early predictions discourage you from voting. Don’t let anything discourage you from voting.
Originally published in The Weathervane No 9 on July 20, 2017. [Subscribe]
