Please help defeat (or fix) three bills Monday morning

[Mary Eberle <m.eberle@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Dear Citizens Interested in Good Election Practices:

I thought you would be interested in helping defeat or fix the three bills mentioned below. Please share this message with those who might help contact his or her senator and ask for amendments and NO votes. Citizen contacts as soon as possible will be key.

Please send the four bullet points below to your state senator ASAP. A phone call to his or her office is also helpful, especially if you can speak to the senator's aide. But leaving a telephone message is also good.

Here is the website with the senators' e-mail addresses and phone numbers:

http://www.leg.state.co.us/Clics/CLICS2009A/csl.nsf/directory?openframeset

Please call or e-mail me if you would like to discuss any of the particulars or if you have trouble finding your senator.

Thank you,

Mary

Mary C. Eberle, President, Coloradans for Voting Integrity
1520 Cress Court
Boulder, CO 80304
(303) 442-2164

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The three long-awaited bills (HB09-1335, 1336, and 1337) associated with running Colorado elections finally received testimony in a senate committee on Friday and passed. The three bills go to the floor of the Senate, probably on Monday, for second reading. Thus time is very short -- as early as Monday morning for second reading. All should be defeated as they stand.

 

These bills incrementally take away opportunities for citizen oversight of election activities, reduce the ability of citizens of some counties to vote on paper despite legislative language to the contrary over several years, and do almost nothing to improve transparency.

 

In brief, here are our recommendations:

 

• Correct the typographical error in the sunset of last year's HB08-1155 (the sunset should be 2010 as shown by the legislative language in the bill instead of 2009) to allow the 2009 election to go forward with current equipment so that a better bill for future elections may be developed for the 2010 legislative session.

 

• HB09-1335: Please vote against the HB09-1335 bill. The bill as written prevents a risk-limiting audit by 2012 and paper-based voting systems by 2010 (as previously promised)—ways exist for paper ballots to be accomplished in all counties with no additional expenditures. The bill fails to require oversight of the secretary of state's certification of voting equipment, and the stated certification methods are inadequate.

 

• HB09-1336: Please vote for the canvass board amendments (to better define the role and to remove majority vote [that is, retain consensus operation as stated in amendment L.010, which we support]) and otherwise please vote against HB09-1336 as well.

 

• HB09-1337: Please vote for any offered amendment that would retain the 10-day counting period prior to an election, rather than extend it to 15 days (no other state counts as long as Colorado’s present 10-day counting period). Otherwise please vote against HB09-1337 as well.

 

THE DETAILS SUPPORTING THE ABOVE BULLET POINTS

 

HB09-1335

 

HB09-1335 will cause any voting system devices that were used in the 2008 election to be grandfathered for use until they disintegrate. Because of a typographical error in the sunset date, last year’s bill (HB08-1155) does not permit the devices’ use for 2009. The solution we are being given in HB09-1335 is to let all of the systems be used forever with no further testing. Concomitantly, the bill does not require implementation of a statewide risk-limiting audit before 2014. Statewide paper ballots or paper trails were promised by several previous legislative bills, but are not absolutely mandated under HB09-1335. The certification of equipment must be approved by the secretary of state if the systems satisfy stated requirements, regardless of any other information the secretary of state may have that would indicate not certifying and not allowing purchase of said equipment.

 

HB09-1336

 

HB09-1336 changes the law regarding the county canvass boards, which certify the election. The change is to require the canvass board to operate by majority vote. Because many canvass boards consist of a Republican and a Democrat and a partisan county clerk, the bill results in no party balance for canvass boards. If the canvass board operates by majority vote, the member of the canvass board who opposes the certification will necessarily be ignored. We suggest that either HB09-1336 be voted down or the canvass board provisions be removed from the bill. There is an amendment (L.010) to put the canvass board operation back to status quo. We recommend that you support that amendment or, if it fails, then recommend to your senators that they defeat the bill.

 

Furthermore, the role of the canvass board is changed to include checking whether the number of cast ballots is more than the number of registered electors in the precinct. This loose standard says almost nothing about election quality and might be used as a factor to limit the activities of the canvass board. Because the canvass board is our best route to ensuring citizen oversight of the election process, we think additional specified checks must come under the purview of each county’s canvass board. A proposed amendment calls for reconciling (1) the number of people who actually attempt to vote with (2) the number of ballots cast.

 

HB09-1337

 

Most states start counting mail ballots only a few days before the election. Oregon, which uses only mail ballots, begins counting on Election Day. We can certainly finish counting in a timely manner by sticking with a ten-day counting period. No other state counts this long. An election’s results, of course, should not be leaked during the progress of the election (such a leak would be illegal), but the longer that results are known by some before the final count on election night, the more likely that results will become known in a way that is unfair to some or all of the participants.