Re: CO HB 1296 Killed by Local Government Committee

[Evan Daniel Ravitz <evan@xxxxxxxx>]

The attitude of "representatives" and their bureaucrats is "make me
(represent you)" with the implied "buy me."

-------------------------------------------------
Evan Ravitz      303 440 6838       evan@xxxxxxxx
Ratify the National Initiative!   http://Vote.org
Photo Adventures:          http://Vote.org/photos
Bush vs the Pope!            http://Vote.org/Bush
Sins of the father Bush   http://Vote.org/silence

Kucinich: winner of the
2003 Ghandi Peace Award      http://kucinich.us
-------------------------------------------------

On Mon, 23 Feb 2004, Joe Pezzillo wrote:

>
>
> I'm sorry to have to report this, folks, but the SoS, Clerks and
> Corporate Vendors have defeated the people this time around. Rep
> Madden's HB1296 was killed in committee this afternoon.
>
> First the bill was weakened by an amendment moved by Rep Weddig (D) to
> remove the Shultheis Amendment which enforced paper ballots. That
> narrowly passed 6-5.
>
> Then by a 9-2 vote, the entire bill was "PI'd" (tabled indefinitely) by
> the Local Government committee on a motion by Rep Berry (R) of Mesa
> County. While it may be better that the weak bill died than be passed,
> it's shameful that the strong bill did not move forward as the people
> wanted.
>
> I've been asked by an Elections Official how many people we think we
> really represent. We learned this morning that TrueMajority's Colorado
> members tried to send 2,700 faxes to the Secretary of State, who this
> afternoon told me that she'd shut the machine off after about 200,
> calling it "malicious." I guess she's not used to hearing from so many
> people and that must be why she mistakenly confused the people's voice
> wanting to participate with something she shouldn't have to pay
> attention to!
>
> We're certainly not done with this issue, and you can see the kind of
> strong opposition to Trustworthy Elections that our so-called
> representatives have even in the face of clear and overwhelming public
> support (they obviously received quite a few e-mails of support for our
> position on this issue since the Chairman mentioned it). The message is
> clear to us from the people who are supposed to be guarding Our
> Democracy, "ignore the people on this issue, they don't know what
> they're talking about, just trust whatever we tell you" which may be
> fine for Clerks to say to each other, but should be an outrage to
> citizens.
>
> I'll follow-up with more info once I have it, but we're going to
> participate in a state wide press conference this week regarding this,
> and I hope that all of you will attend our meeting this Wednesday 2/25
> at the Boulder Library Branch in Table Mesa where we'll be discussing
> the statewide issue with folks from the state group Coloradans for
> Voting Integrity, as well as looking at what's happening in Boulder
> County.
>
> I'm sorry we couldn't have won this battle for you, too, but we're just
> going to have to work that much harder and smarter to protect the vote,
> clearly our representatives cannot be trusted to do it for us. Don't
> hesitate to use the same contact information sent out on Friday to let
> the representatives know how you feel about their failure to protect
> the vote in Colorado.
>
> Please contact me directly if you want any additional info, otherwise,
> I'll expect that the list will shortly have it's own commentary on
> this.
>
> Joe
>