Friends:
We all owe a great debt of gratitude to three brave Senators
who stood up for the people. Senator Bruce Cairns, Senator Deanna Hanna,
and Senator Moe Keller listened and heard our reasons and then voted to defeat
HB 1227. Unfortunately, it was not enough. The other four members of
the committee voted to pass the bill from committee.
Senator Cairns submitted a
motion to require that new voting equipment produce a verifiable paper record for
each voter. HAVA director Drew Durham
told the Senators that Colorado HAVA funding would be withdrawn if this
amendment were to pass. Senators who voted against the amendment said
that their vote was influenced by this information. Despite the threat of
funding loss, Senators Cairns and Hanna voted FOR the amendment.
I checked the HAVA legislation – non-lawyer that I am –
and believe that TITLE III, Section 301 would not be violated by this amendment.
I sent a note to Drew Durham asking
that he revisit the language. In addition, a message has been sent to
Congressman Mark Udall to see if there is a way to confirm our understanding.
Durham also made
an appeal to not include voter verifiable in any of 1227 since there is no certified
voter verifiable equipment. I checked with the AUTOMARK vendors this
morning and find that the AUTOMARK did enter the federal certification program in
March and is making very good progress – with no incidents so far. In
my opinion, there will be a certified voter verifiable full text paper ballot ADA compliant vote
marking machine this year.
Senator Cairns, Senator Hanna, and Senator
Keller voted to defeat the bill, but the bill was passed to
the floor of the Senate on a 5/3 vote.
I can find no reason for this bill to be passed this year --
other than to permit two vendors of optical scan equipment to gain Colorado certification before Colorado requires that optical scan counting
systems must be verifiable.
It is likely that the bill will come before the full Senate
today. Please try to persuade all Senators to Postpone Indefinitely HB
1227.
Al
CAMBER
Citizens for Accurate Mail Ballot Election Results
2867 Tincup
Circle
Boulder, CO 80305
303-494-1540
AlKolwicz@xxxxxxxxx
www.users.qwest.net/~alkolwicz