RE: election bills come to committee tomorrow "upon recess"

["Dr. Charles E. Corry" <ccorry@xxxxxxxx>]

Title: RE: election bills come to committee tomorrow "upon recess

At 2:24 PM -0600 1/21/09, Cliff West wrote:

> I am in favor of eliminating uncontested
> contests from primary, to avoid wasting taxpayer money.  There
> was not a single contested candidate in the Jefferson County
> Democratic primary this time - what a waste of time and
> money!

[What we really need is to hold fewer special district, municipal, and elections to replace crooks caught in the act, who die, or resign. These positions could go unfilled until the next regular election without significant harm to the body politic.]

> We should try to pressure legislature and
> clerks to adopt instant runoff voting, in exchange for agreeing to end
> primary, which usually occurs too late to make any difference, in
> CO.

[Instant runoff elections are the worst possible choice and no one has yet demonstrated how to make them work accurately and reliably. IRE also absolutely require computers to handle them but programming and other errors have been rampant where they've been tried. DON'T DO THAT! And primaries are necessary where two or more candidates are running for the same office, which is quite desirable in a democratic republic. Elections are not about cost, they are about preserving our Constitution and freedoms.]

>  The largest potential source of
> mail ballot fraud is probably disabled nursing home patients and their
> low paid staff, who may be amenable to payoffs.  I have not heard
> any credible proposals for reducing fraud in assited living centers. 
> I have heard the going rate for BUYING a nursing home vote is $100,
> but do not know how accurate the figure is.

[NO! The largest potential source of fraud with mail ballots is an insider at the clerk's office who has access to the ballot tabulation software. Mail ballots are typically counted in a back room at the clerk's office with little or no public oversight so an insider changing the outcomes is quite unlikely to be detected.

    For more on why mail ballots are a bad idea see http://www.ejfi.org/Voting/Voting-77.htm. Remember, you can have an honest election, or you can have a mail ballot election, but you can't have both at the same time.]

            Chuck Corry

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> Date: Wed, 21 Jan 2009 11:44:18 -0700
> Subject: election bills come to committee tomorrow "upon
> recess"
> From: margitjo@xxxxxxxxx
> To: harvie@xxxxxxxxxxxxx; dave@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx; angielayton@xxxxxxxx;
> ivan.meek@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx; richey80304@xxxxxxxxx;
> m.eberle@xxxxxxxxxxxx; clifwest@xxxxxxxxxxx; Tmmco1@xxxxxxx;
> ctlo@xxxxxxx; amaynard_1@xxxxxxxx; ccorry@xxxxxxxx;
> alkolwicz@xxxxxxxxx; jdlwcec@xxxxxxxxx; attendees@xxxxxxx;
> cvv-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Hi All,
>     A couple of election
> bills are scheduled to come before the House State, Veterans
> and Military Affairs Committee  TOMORROW AM, "UPON
> RECESS", i.e. when the general assembly recesses after their
> morning meeting, which is whenever...9AM? 9:30?  You just have to
> go in early and hang around.
>     The one that seems of
> most concern (although I haven't read the others in detail) is
> HB1015, which would allow all-mail ballot elections for
> primaries.  (See attachment.)  It is fourth
> on the list; I don't know how much time the first three bills will
> take.  There is always the chance they won't make it to the
> fourth bill.
>     (If you can show
> that mail ballot elections are not as secure because they don't
> have the protection of citizen oversight etc etc, then  you
> can say that this will allow parties, if not others, to favor the
> candidates they prefer for their purposes.  Citizen
> preferences for candidates could lose out to establishment candidates,
> for example.  Right?) 
>      I hope those
> who can give good specific examples of security problems with
> mail ballots will come forward to testify.  For Dems,
> examples that show monied interests undermining the
> vote with mail ballots is probably more compelling than
> individual vote fraud, given that recent studies
> have downplayed the effect of individual fraud. For
> Republicans, examples of individual fraud seems to resonate,
> though.
> I hope to see you computer experts,
> and election reformers all, at the hearing tomorrow
> AM!
> Thanks so much,
> Margit
>  
> Margit Johansson, CFVI
> 303-442-1668/ margitjo@xxxxxxxxx
>   
>

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