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Replacement candidates now get dropout's votes

Rule will be in effect for the November general election

John C. Ensslin, Rocky Mountain News

Published September 12, 2006 at midnight

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Votes cast for candidates who drop out of a race up to 18 days before an election now will go to the person chosen by their party to replace them on the ballot.

The new rule, adopted Thursday by the Colorado secretary of state, will be in effect during the November general election.

But at least one county clerk thinks it's a bad idea.

"It seems un-American that any candidate can 'receive' votes that were actually cast for somebody else," Adams County Clerk Carol Snyder wrote in an e-mail to an elections official in the secretary of state's office.

When contacted Monday, Snyder, a Democrat, suggested one scenario in which voters could cast ballots for a popular candidate and unwittingly elect an unpopular one chosen by the party vacancy committee.

Such committees are designated to name replacements when candidates drop out.

"People think they're voting for Mr. Likable, and, instead, Mr. Unlikable is basically inheriting all of these votes," Snyder said.

Secretary of State Gigi Dennis was not available for comment late Monday on the rule change. However, her spokesperson, Dana Williams, said the rule is aimed at correcting a gap in the existing law.

Until now, if a candidate dropped out after the ballots had been printed but still more than 18 days before an election, those votes would go to the former candidate, not the replacement.

Under the new rule, a replacement named within 70 to 18 days of the election will garner those votes, even if the candidate's name is not on the printed ballot.

Williams said clerks would be required, however, to put a colored sticker with the name of the replacement candidate next to the original candidate on the sample ballot at the polling place and in the voting booth.

As for Snyder's criticism, Williams said, "We do understand where she is coming from, . . . but we are trying to make the statute work."

Williams said there was no immediate or recent case that was driving the push for the new rule.

"We always want to have rules in place before an issue arises," Williams said.

So far, there is no candidate who would be the beneficiary of the rule change, Williams said.

Rick VanWie, a Green Party candidate for secretary of state, dropped out last week, Williams said, leaving Republican Mike Coffman and Democrat Ken Gordon in the race. But there is still time for county clerks to remove VanWie's name before ballots are printed, she said.