Officials urge Coloradans to vote by absentee ballot

Ann Imse, Rocky Mountain News

Published September 26, 2006 at midnight

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Some Colorado counties stand ready to help voters cast their ballots by mail to alleviate concerns about potential tampering or other problems with computerized voting machines.

In fact, Denver and Arapahoe counties are urging citizens to vote absentee with mailed paper ballots, simply because November's ballot is so long.

A Denver judge ruled Friday that the computerized machines had not been tested sufficiently for security vulnerabilities.

With some two dozen decisions to make, "voters really need to consider absentee and early voting options," said Denver Election Commission spokesman Alton Dillard. There are 14 state ballot issues, as well as races for Congress, the state legislature, governor, other statewide offices and other contests.

Arapahoe County Clerk Nancy Doty agreed that it's more practical this year to take the time to vote at home.

"I'm encouraging people to use absentee ballots because of the length of the ballot," Doty said. "I feel very good about our voting equipment, and that's not the reason I'm suggesting people vote on absentee ballots."

Jefferson County is recommending mail ballots to voters who are worried about security, said elections director Susan Miller.

The secretary of state did an "abysmal" job of security testing on the new touch-screen machines, Denver District Judge Lawrence Manzanares ruled Friday. But he said it was too late to bar the machines from the election, as plaintiffs in the lawsuit requested.

Instead, the judge ordered the state and plaintiffs' attorneys to devise new election security rules to ensure that no one can get to the machines to tamper with them.

Monday afternoon, the secretary of state sent proposed new rules to the other side by e-mail, said Dana Williams, the secretary's spokeswoman.

Neither side would estimate how soon they would have jointly approved rules to propose to the judge, and both declined to make the state's draft rules public.

"It's supposed to be a joint effort. And at this point, it reflects only our opinions," explained Kristin Holtzman, spokeswoman for the state attorney general's office, which is handling the case for the state.

But one concern of the plaintiffs is the practice of some counties of sending voting machines home with election judges the night before Election Day, giving someone in their homes ample time to reprogram the machines.

During the trial, plaintiffs argued that malicious software could be installed with a screwdriver and a flash drive in as little as one minute on some machines.

Sending the machines home for the night with election judges is standard practice in El Paso County, one of the state's largest, with a population of more than 500,000. But El Paso elections director Liz Olson said the machines travel in heavy canvas bags with numbered plastic seals that pull the zipper shut. She said the bags always have shown up intact when checked at the polling place by other election judges.

The Democratic Party and the Democratic and Republican candidates for secretary of state have suggested that voters cast absentee ballots.

Democratic candidate state Sen. Ken Gordon said voting by mail avoids any security issues with the machines and confusion at new, larger voting locations in many counties. He called for the counties to provide a secure chain of custody for the machines and said that would increase confidence in the election.

Republican candidate Mike Coffman, the state treasurer, said, "There's no question that the vote is going to be more secure voting absentee than showing up at a polling center."

That said, he added, "It's a standard political tactic to get your base to vote absentee - because you know they voted and you don't have to worry about bad weather on Election Day."

Dennis, a Republican who was appointed secretary of state and is not running, disagreed with conjecture about tampering, saying the machines are safe.

There hasn't been a jump in requests for absentee ballots in Jefferson or El Paso counties, officials said. However, Jeffco already expected 50 percent of its 250,000 voters to cast their ballots by mail, Mil-ler said.

Adams County has received 28,000 requests for absentee ballots so far and expects about 50,000 total, up about 9 percent from 2004. County Clerk Carol Snyder said that with campaigns beginning to urge voters to use mail ballots, she expects the number to jump within the next two weeks.

Denver can get extra absentee ballots printed in just two days, if needed, Dillard said. That's a sharp contrast with testimony in the trial from other counties, who said they could not get new ballots printed in the month left before early voting.

Problems with computerized voting machines cropped up in primaries this year in Ohio, Arkansas, Illinois and Maryland. And New Mexico and Connecticut have ordered going back to paper ballots and optical scanners.

imsea@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-5438

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