Campaign info was 'mistaken'

Myung Oak Kim and Burt Hubbard, Rocky Mountain News

Published June 17, 2006 at midnight

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An analysis of volunteers supporting an anti-illegal immigrant campaign shows that most are Republicans, contrary to what the lead consultant for the group told a reporter this week.

Curt Cerveny, who is managing the collection of petition signatures for Defend Colorado Now, said the movement was bipartisan and had significant Democratic support. He showed a reporter a spreadsheet of the 3,400 volunteers, which showed that almost half were Democrats.

But a check of 100 people identified as Democrats on the database showed that 66 were actually Republicans, according to online voter-registration records. Thirty-three of them were Democrats and one was Libertarian.

If that percentage stays consistent for the rest of the database, about 15 percent of the volunteers are Democrats, instead of half.

Cerveny, who works for Politically Direct, a Denver direct-mail and phone-banking firm led by former Republican state lawmaker Rob Fairbank, said he wasn't trying to mislead anyone.

He later said that the party affiliation information was a code for something else, which he declined to explain.

"I was mistaken," Cerveny said.

Fred Elbel, co-chairman of Defend Colorado Now, which hired Cerveny, said he doesn't know why the database was erroneous.

But he emphasized that bipartisan support is strong for the campaign.

Elbel said nearly all Republicans support the initiative and that more than one-third of Democrats he's approached support the measure.

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