RE: Secret ballot and the Colorado constitution

["Some Guy" <someguy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I'd like to cite the constitution of Colorado for those unfamiliar with the
case of which Mr. Shnelvar speaks.

Source:   Colorado Constitution : CONSTITUTION OF THE STATE OF COLORADO :
ARTICLE VII SUFFRAGE AND ELECTIONS : Section 8. Elections by ballot or
voting machine.

"All elections by the people shall be by ballot, and in case paper ballots
are required to be used, no ballots shall be marked in any way whereby the
ballot can be identified as the ballot of the person casting it."

It goes on with some other statements, but this was the meat and potatoes of
the lawsuit.

The plaintiffs in this case asked the court to direct its attention to the
serial numbers that the Boulder County Clerk had printed on the ballots.
Clerk Linda Salas stated that she had a waiver from Secretary of State
Donetta Davidson to serialize the ballots. She also stated that ballots had
been serialized in the past, so this was nothing new.
The local district judge evidently believed that the SoS could waive section
8 of article VII. He really was out of his league here. I personally believe
that the Boulder district court was the wrong place for this suit, but since
the plaintiffs were trying to rectify a local county issue they had little
choice in where to start.

The creed that I have come to live by concerning the difference between
constitution and statue is as such:
The constitution is designed to limit government. The statutes are designed
to limit the people.

Section 8 doesn't say who cannot mark the ballots with traceability, it
simply says that it cannot be done: "...no ballots shall be marked in any
way ..."
The clerk and the SoS decided that this meant that voters couldn't make
traceable marks, but they were allowed.

What is now evident to me is that without these identifying marks the gross
errors produced by bad ballots and suspect software would have made it
impossible to figure out what the heck was going on in 04. The serialization
was needed by the elections equipment vendor. Their systems wouldn't
function without it. Is this a design flaw or intentional?

One thing of note is that serialization was in vogue before the purchase and
use of Hart/InterCivic's system. However, these identifying marks were
removed when the ballots were taken out of their envelopes - in the past.
They were on a part of the ballot that was perforated and torn off.
That could have been done in 04, but that was not how the ballot was
designed, nor the system that scanned those ballots.

When I testified before the state legislature's blue ribbon elections
commission I asked Sen. Ken Gordon how SoS Davidson could give a waiver to
Boulder. Ken stated that the SoS told him she could and he left it at that.
Davidson waived the Colorado Constitution. One wonders if Ken thinks that
the legislature could do that too?

Paul Tiger, Publicity Director of the Libertarian Party of Boulder County
Publicity@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
303-774-6383 voice and messages
720-323-0570 cell
www.LPBoulder.org
"The government that governs best, governs least."
                            Thomas Jefferson


-----Original Message-----
From: Ralph Shnelvar [mailto:ralphs@xxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Monday, February 20, 2006 9:25 PM
Subject: Secret ballot and the Colorado constitution

Pam and all:

[snip]

>
>With this issue, it appears to also be sacrificing the right
>to a secret ballot. I hope that Margit's approach, to cite
>the Colorado provision that guarantees secrecy as something
>that trumps this type of electronic shortcut, will be effective.
>

Unfortunately, the Colorado constitution and the courts are weak reeds to
lean on.

I was part of a lawsuit about secret ballots and the county clerk's office
as well as the Secretary of State argued that the ballot numbering system
was in "substantial compliance" (which means whatever the courts think it
should mean) with the Colorado constitution.

This marking of ballots is even a more egregious violation of the Colorado
constitution but I don't hold much hope that the courts will reject this
measure.

Our best hope is to point this out to the legislature.

>Pam

Ralph Shnelvar